AMERICAN EDUCAnON JOSEPH HENRY CROORER ^^ ^W"' ^- \' ^''-' ' \\^ v^O ^^' .. ^^ ; ^0^ :/ >:: ^ v^ - o \^. ^^.C^ / :Mf>h"^ % ^^ * - xo i>- ^ t. ^^'"-^, .f-^ >N ■'bo'* '. ■'^/^ v*^ 0^ ^-^ -^^ '''-<#%'^r .j.'^'-'-V % I «, •>%- / 'mil. .#• -^ ^ /\ ^^^v^ ,N 's ^o 0J-* 'be V .^ '^.c^ '^^ ^^^ < ^0 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN AMERICAN EDUCATION RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN AMERICAN EDUCATION By JOSEPH HENRY CROOKER Author of Probl£Ms in American Sociity, etc. 1 to'a^o^-j,,, ' BOSTON AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION 1903 n THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, Two Copies Received JUN 17 1903 Copyright CLAS^' fC Entry XXc. Ne. ^ S COPY 7-/ a ^"-] b Copyright iqo3 American Unitarian Association A WORD OF THANKS The presidents of many colleges and universi- ties have responded to my inquiries for facts with uniform courtesy and valuable information. Many other persons have generously aided me in my investigations. To all of these I wish to express my warmest appreciation for the kind- nesses received. I wish especially to thank Prof. Wm. H. Carruth of the University of Kansas, Hon. O. E. Butterfield of the Detroit Bar, and Prof. Francis G. Peabody of Harvard University for friendly assistance and important suggestions, though these gentlemen are not re- sponsible for any of the opinions here set forth. Joseph H. Ceooker. Ann Arboe, Michigan, 1903. PREFACE The origin of this book is to be found in the vote of the Annual Meeting of the American Unitarian Association, adopted on May 21, 1901, wherein it was — Voted, To request the President to appoint a committee of the Association to consider and report upon the condition and progress of un- sectarian education in American schools, acade- mies, and colleges. In accordance with this vote the President appointed as this committee Professor Franklin W. Hooper, director of the Brooklyn Institute, Brooklyn, N.Y. ; Professor Samuel C. Derby, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio ; Eev. Joseph H. Crooker, Ann Arbor, Mich. ; Ellis Peterson, Esq., supervisor of the Boston Public Schools; Frederic Winsor, Esq., Middlesex School, Concord, Mass. ; Thomas Q. Browne, Esq., Morristown School, Morristown, KJ. ; Eev. James De Normandie, president of the trustees of the Eoxbury Latin School ; Professor yiii PREFACE Horatio S. White, dean of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. ; Harrison O. Apthorp, Esq., Mil- ton Academy, Milton, Mass.; Professor William H. Carruth, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kan. ; and Mr. J. L. Coolidge, instructor in Harvard University. This committee duly or- ganized with the President of the Association as chairman, and Mr. Coolidge as secretary. The subjects which are in general set forth in the table of contents of this volume were as- signed for investigation and report to various sub- committees. At a second meeting of the committee, these sub- committees reported ; and Dr. Crooker was appointed to collate and edit these statements, and to write a preliminary re- port to be presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association in 1902. This preliminary re- port was duly prepared and presented, and is to be found printed on pages 36-42 of the Annual Eeport of the American Unitarian Association for 1901-02. Dr. Crooker was then commis- sioned to amplify this report for publication in book form, and this volume is the result of his labor. The individual members of the commit- tee approved the preliminary report of which PREFACE ix this book is the amplification ; but they are not individually or collectively responsible for the conclusions of this book, which represent Dr. Crooker's own observation, experience, and judgment. To his task Dr. Orooker brings from his efficient service in different parts of the country, and especially in the college towns of Madison, Wis., and Ann Arbor, Mich., a large acquaintance with academic life, a sym- pathy with the problems and needs of American college students, and a conviction of the value of democratic principles. His habit of careful investigation and verification, and his power of clear statement, combine with this experience to entitle him to an expert judgment upon the subjects treated in these chapters. The book is timely and significant, and its facts and con- clusions are commended to the consideration of all who are interested in the welfare of the American Commonwealth. Samuel A. Eliot. CONTENTS PAGE. I. The Seculae State 3 II. Religious Neutrality in Education 25 (^III. The Bible and the Public Schools . 53 ly. The Religious Motive and Higheb Education 85 V, Religion in Denominational Institu- tions 105 VI. NoBMAL Schools and Agricultural Colleges 127 VII. The State Universities 141 VIII. Some Interesting Experiments . . . 163 IX. Conclusions and Recommendations . 183 THE SECULAR STATE THE SECULAR STATE One of the great problems at whicli Protes- tants have been laboring for some four centuries has been the creation of a civil government that shall administer justice between man and man, guarantee the civil and religious freedom of every individual, and secure the education of all children without trampling upon the religious rights of any child. The Modern State in ideal and spirit is homocentric. It represents an ap- plication to civic affairs of the wise conviction that spoke in the notable saying ; ' ' The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sab- bath." Government is not the end, but the instrument of civilization. In olden times the individual existed for the sake of the State : with us the State exists to protect and perfect the individual. The primary condition upon which the Protestant sentiment insists, when at its best, is liberty, — freedom of investigation, freedom of worship, freedom of industry, freedom of educa- 3 4 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN tion. The end in view is a fully developed, self-governing, public -spirited human life. The time was, and that not long ago, when the State not only had religious functions, but was itself a religious establishment. Its highest ofi&ces were filled by churchmen, while ecclesi- astics were by virtue of their position State officials. The policy of the State in foreign relations and domestic affairs was very largely shaped by religious interests. The State took account of the religious beliefs of its people, it prohibited sceptical writings, and it punished heresy as a crime. Its wars were religious wars : its treaties were ecclesiastical documents. Then all schools were built upon religious foundations. Their chief studies were theological, and their primary aim was to prepare men for service in the church. Education was in those days an ecclesiastical method more than a means of human development. The movement which we are discussing has, at times, made very slow progress among Prot- estants ; and even the prominent Eeformers often imperfectly understood and only partially obeyed the great principles which they held in AMERICAN EDUCATION 6 trust. Moreover, the beginnings of this move- ment antedate the Eeformation by many years. To find one of the first men who did see the great truths which have been incorporated into the Modern State, we have to go back to Mar- silius of Padua, who in 1324 published a book, Defensor FaciSy influential and epoch-making, in which ha set church and State apart, holding that the State should have no religious func- tions and the priest no power in secular affairs. This was the prophecy of the modern Secular State. It was in the same line that Wiclif, ^^the Morning Star of the Eeformation, '' taught a half century later in his great book, De Dominio JDivino. The central theme of this treatise is a discussion of the origin and nature of spiritual and secular power. He denied that power (or authority) flows solely or chiefly through sacra- ment and hierarchy, — the Catholic claim ; and he asserted that it descends directly from God by grace to the individual, and depends upon per- sonal service and true ministry. This doctrine struck at the root of all tyrannies in State and church, and made Wiclif a good deal of a demo- 6 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN crat, or even socialist, when tliese terms were unknown. Finally, in tlie space of a little over fifty years, in the sixteenth century, some great events for freedom occurred. Luther's heroism broke the chains of mediaeval superstition, though he failed to make reason free and the gospel independent of the State. But Zwingli labored with a more rational spirit ; and in England Thomas More made, in Utopia, a plea for religious toleration, which, as a statesman, he unfortunately did not practise. Then Cas- tellio, who looked on in sorrow as Calvin burned Servetus at Geneva in 1553, raised his voice in clear and earnest denunciation of such per- secutions for opinion's sake ; and he advocated the widest liberty of belief for all. About a dozen years later William of Orange in the Netherlands tried hard to put this theory into practice as a State policy. In Poland, a dozen years still later, the broad-minded Socinus was preaching and practising this glorious doctrine of freedom in religious belief. In 1568 Sigis- mund went far beyond his age in an act granting religious freedom to Hungary. Then soon after AMERICAN EDUCATION 7 (1598) in France came the '^ Edict of Nantes/^ which gave liberty of conscience, but not univer- sal freedom of worship. All through the sixteenth century, however, Catholics and Protestants were cruelly persecut- ing each other. Parties within the Eomish Church and Protestant sects without were doing the same to each other. The story is long and indescribably mournful and horrible. Some- thing was here and there gained for toleration, as the facts just stated show j but the one great truth that would have stopped the bloodshed had not been established, — that the State cease to undertake to regulate the religious opinions of the people. But a beginning in this direction was make by . Eobert Browne in 1584 by his little pamphlet, True and ShoH Declaration^ in which he argued that church and State be separated for the good of both gospel and commonwealth. Here was a view of religion and the church which took the gospel out of bondage to both priest and politi- cian and retired the State from all attempts to coerce its citizens in matters of belief. This was the first of what may be called the 8 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN ^^Ten Great Words" for religious equality. In 1610 John Eobinson followed with his Justifica- tion of Separation, arguing the case more in detail than Browne. Eoger Williams, in 1644, put into print, in The Bloody Tenent of Fersecution, the doctrine of the non-interference of the State in religion which he had been preaching for ten years. Soon (1647) Jeremy Taylor followed with a similar plea in The Liberty of Prophesying, a plea for a free preacher in a free pulpit. In those days of great things in England for human rights, Cromwell took advanced ground for a free press and the freedom of religious opinion, though he found it hard to practise the princi- ples of liberty. John Milton, in 1659, carried forward the cause of freedom which he had long been advocating (Areopagitica had been pub- lished in 1644) in his work on Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes. A dozen years later Will- iam Penn stated a needed word in defence of the Friends in Liberty of Conscience. Then John Locke rounded out this generation of agitation in his Letters on Toleration (1689). IN'early a century later we come upon the three giants in this cause of human freedom. Yol- AMERICAN EDUCATION 9 taire's intense hatred of bigotry and oppression flashed forth in 1762 in his Treatise on Toleration. Lessing, in 1779, published the noblest words of all, — Nathan the Wise. And, about the time our Federal Constitution was being framed, the great scientist, Joseph Priestley, penned his Letter to William Pitt on Toleration. Of great importance also is his Essay on the Frinciples of Government^ 1771, sections V.-YIII. These are the chief literary expressions of the conviction, which finally grew to mastery, that church and State must be separate, and that all men must be left free to form and enjoy their own religious be- liefs. Besides the influences of this literature of freedom, there were other agencies at work which led the Modern State to a more or less complete abandonment of ecclesiastical func- tions. Among them the following may be mentioned as the chief : (1) A profound change in the atti- tude of the people toward Eome. The Eoman hierarchy became discredited, especially in the sixteenth century, by its inability to provide for the higher life of the nations ; and a popular 10 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN conviction grew up that the Papal power subor- dinated all national interests and the general welfare of humanity to her own selfish aggran- dizement. Eevolt was inevitable, and that revolt shattered the ecclesiastical ideal of government associated with the Catholic Church. (2) The consolidation of the small powers of Western Europe into great nations raised up rulers who, in becoming conscious of their own powers, became jealous of their rights ; and, in making and executing plans of their own, they were carried into opposition against Eome, and toward a secular ideal and policy. (3) The rise to power, at the close of the Middle Ages, of the industrial type of society tended to secularize the State in two ways : First, the energies of the individual were liber- ated, and each man became conscious of the dignity and importance of his own life. These centres of industrialism were the homes of a sturdy passion for liberty. In them the evils of priestcraft were understood, and the authority of the church was resisted. And, as the right of private opinion began to be realized, the conclu- sion was inevitable that government must retire AMERICAN EDUCATION H from tlie control of religious belief to the mainte- nance of civil justice. Second, industrialism destroyed the acetic spirit and the sacerdotal ideal. The growing prominence of economic interests replaced the clerical habits of thought with a secular tone and temper, and people be- gan to feel that government ought to devote it- self to the affairs of this world. The State must not only be the guardian of freedom, it must , foster social progress and temporal interests. Thus all the reactions produced by commercial and industrial activities carried the State toward a reduction of its functions to secular affairs. (4) The revival of learning brought forward the classical ideals of antiquity, which were abso- lutely opposed to the teachings of the church respecting individual character and national duties. The increasing study of Eoman juris- prudence established and emphasized the idea of natural rights in the place of the dogma of ecclesiastical authority. The growth of the | scientific spirit closely associated with the new \ learning, by destroying belief in the supersti- ) tions of the church, brought the clerical ideal into discredit, while it fostered respect for the 12 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN affairs of this life and stimulated temporal activi- ties. (5) The multiplication of sects, under the im- petus given to the assertion of private opinions by Protestantism, compelled governments to withdraw from ecclesiastical affairs. The State, to enjoy any iDcace and to maintain any author- ity, was forced to become secular when its people became divided into several rival church organizations. The growth of sects in England has gradually secularized the government j for, though an established church continues to exist, yet it is an anachronism, and in reality civil gov- ernment is carried forward without any special reference to dogmatic or ecclesiastical matters. The co-operation of these and other causes has tended to secularize the Modern State, so that civil government has practically become inde- pendent of the church, while the affairs of relig- ion have been removed more and more from political control to private management. There have been no religious wars since the peace of Westphalia in 1648. Ecclesiastics hardly ever occupy civil of&ces, and church interests have no prominence in political movements. Through- AMERICAN EDUCATION 13 out the civilized world the civil power has prac- tically ceased to punish heresy as a crime j and, outside of Eussia, hardly any State attempts to exercise censorship over the press in matters pertaining to religion. The work of Eoger Williams, John Locke, and other kindred spirits, for the secularization of the State, is too well known to need descrip- tion. Eeference has already been made to their writings. In Germany Puffendorf ^' drove the theologians out of political science and founded a purely lay theory of the State,'' while Freder- ick the Great ^^was the first to emancipate Europe religiously and to create the purely Secular State." The French Ee volution, with bloody hands, tore asunder the bonds which united church and State, and laid bare the natu- ral rights of man as the true basis of government, which, in the words of Locke, must derive its power from the people and use it for the people. Frederic Harrison has well stated the spirit and object of the Modern State: ^^ About all the functions of the State there runs one common characteristic : in the first place, they concern men in their material lives, in the free employ- 14 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN ment of their industry^ and tlie facilities of com- mon intercourse. In the second place, they act in material ways by the arm, ultimately, of the policeman and the turnkey : they stand apart from the si^here of persuasion, they act only when the mass of the citizens are practically agreed." What a nation simply as a ]Deople may need or be is one thing : what they may see fit to do through their government is quite another thing. It is well for a nation as a people to have a rich and vigorous religious life ; but the modern spirit has determined that the cultivation of the religious life is not one of the functions of civil government. The celebrated argument of Mr. Gladstone, which even Lord Macaulay so in- adequately answered, is fatally weak at this point. It fails to take any account of the pro- found difference between the corporate life of the nation and the functions of civil government. We are a Christian !N'ation in a certain sense, considered solely as a people j but the govern- ment of the United States is neither Christian nor infidel : it is simply non-religious. I In the United States, by a more peaceful AMERICAN EDUCATION 15 process than that followed in Europe, our Eevo- lutionary fathers established, not simply uni- versal toleration, but perfect religious equality, by making it unconstitutional for any State to enact any law respecting an establishment of religion. The civil government of our land is subject to no ecclesiastical dictation, and the churches within our borders are subject to no civil authority in matters of belief. We have practically realized this Secular Ideal. With us not only are church and State absolutely separate from each other : the State attempts no religious functions and possesses no religious dogma. It is well for churchmen in America, when they seek to interfere in civil affairs, to remember that they are given freedom in religion upon condition that they leave the State free in its specific work. If they do not want the State to | supervise its affairs, they must leave the State I absolutely free in its legislative and educational i work. The Secular State is, therefore, in the United States, an accomplished fact, thanks especially to the wisdom of such men as Franklin, Jeffer- 16 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN son, and Madison. And our civil institutions have, and can have, no ecclesiastical duties or spiritual offices. And, while some of our courts have held that Christianity is, in a certain way, the law of the land, yet these decisions have in the main been very vague j and, so far as any of them have taken ground against the purely secular theory of our government, they have misstated the genius of our institutions, while they have been condemned by the manifest des- tiny and essential spirit of our National Life. It is often urged that Christianity is a part of the law of the land, because our Puritan fore- fathers tried to set up on these shores a theocracy based upon the pattern found in the Scriptures* But people who so argue forget that the experi- ment, in this respect, was a failure. They forget also the history that we have made since that day. And what great men said on this subject before we as a I^ation had completed our politi- cal evolution toward our manifest destiny as a Secular State is of no value or authority. Some things which cannot be ignored have happened since the days of John Cotton or even Daniel Webster. AMERICAN EDUCATION 17 And the position of Christianity in N^ew Eng- land two centuries ago is no more a precedent for us who live to-day than the behavior of the men of that age respecting witches or heretics is a rule of action binding upon us. This question cannot be settled by appeal to precedent or technicality or the authority of great names, but by the essential and inherent genius or character of our people, as it progressively discloses itself in our National Life. And the one thing that becomes clearer and clearer is that public opin- ion, social custom, and civil policy are declaring more and more emphatically for the Secular Ideal. We must also remember, what is so often for- gotten even by distinguished writers upon this subject, that there is a vast difference between what we, as a people, may be in religion and what our civil institutions, as parts of the gov- ernment, may attempt. The great importance of this truth, to which reference has already been made, makes another and fuller statement of it not inappropriate. As a people, taken in a mass, it is fair to say that we are a Christian community ; but to the government which we 18 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN maintain we give no religious quality or func- tion. It is proper to say that we are a Christian people : it is not proper to affirm that we are a Christian Nation. It is equally improper to say that we have a godless or irreligious government. The fact is that, with us, the State simply stands apart from these matters in absolute neutrality. Here is a department of human life from which civil government retires, not because it is unim- portant, but because it is better for all interests that the field be left free from political super- vision. The religious beliefs of our people and the popular estimate of the Bible do not come into the discussion of the question respecting the secu- larization of the Modern State, because the civil government has ceased to exercise religious func- tions. And this movement is not only irresist- ible, but beneficent. As Mr. Lecky remarks, ^^The secularization of politics is the measure and the condition of all political prosperity.'^ And we may well add that the separation of the church from the State is the measure and condi- tion of all religious prosperity. The only way to make piety real and vital is to take it out of A3IERICAN EDUCATION 1^ the reach of officialism and locate it in the in- dividual heart. The Secular State is, then, no sudden creation,, the freak of frenzied enemies of religion. It has come out of the slowly accumulating experiences of mankind, as the political spirit has carefully and laboriously gone forward in its earnest quest for a government that at the same time shall be best for the individual and for society, that shall give the church the largest possibilities and the State the greatest political efficiency. The Secu- lar State is, too, the creation of religious men^ who have persevered in their course with noble heroism in the face of persecutions, and who have worked with large views of humanity and in obedience to the manifest teachings of history to fashion a government where politics shall be free from religious hatreds, and where the church shall be free from the despotisms and the corrup- tions of politics. We may lament, we may denounce j but the Secular State is the expres- sion and the outcome of a resistless tendency which will crush any man or institution that stands in its way and attempts to impede its progress. 20 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN That we have in the United States of America always been true to the spirit of freedom cannot be truthfully claimed. That we have in all re- spects reached the ideal of the Secular State can- not be successfully maintained. Survivals of the ancient order remain in different parts of our land. Laws now exist here and there and meth- ods still persist that violate the basic principles of our free government. The following facts, however, show that we have, in the main, been loyal to the spirit of lib- erty. The Constitution of the United States forbids the enactment of laws establishing any religion. Twenty-eight States forbid the giving of any preference by law to any sect or to any denominational mode of worship. Twenty-five States prohibit the use of public funds for sec- tarian institutions or purposes, or especially the use of the public school fund for such purposes. In twenty-six State constitutions it is provided that no one shall be compelled to pay for the support of any church or minister save by his own consent. Twenty States expressly guarantee the freedom of conscience. No State is wholly without some provision of this sort. A3IERICAN EDUCATION 21 From these and various other guarantees and prohibitions of State and National constitutions, it seems justifiable to declare that the spirit of American institutions is profoundly opposed to the union of church and State in any shape or form, — to the use of the power and property of the whole people for or against the religious beliefs and institutions of any part of the people. RELIGIOUS NEUTRALITY IN EDUCATION RELIGIOUS NEUTRALITY IN EDUCA- TION There is a force at work in our country at the heart of human affairs which shapes our govern- mentj creates public opinion, rules the common mind, and points the way to progress. It is what we may call the ^ ' American Idea, ' ' because it has found its clearest expression here, though it is a motive power which is at work everywhere in modern society. And what is the American Idea? It is a new conception of the basis of social union and the function of human govern- ment. This theory of the State as a purely secular institution has nowhere been better de- scribed than by Bluntschli : '^The modern idea of the State is not religious, though it is not irre- ligious. . . . Modern political science does not profess to comprehend the ways of God, but endeavors to understand the State as a human institution. . . . The Modern State does not con- sider religion a condition of legal status, . . . but 25 26 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN develops the common freedom of citizenship in all classes and compels every one to submit to its authority.'' The American Idea means a gov- ernment organized on the basis of universal humanity, to guard common rights and to pro- mote the welfare and progress of all men. The American theory of civil government which gives us the Secular State also gives us the secular Public School. The secularization of the State involves and necessitates the secu- larization of its schools. Says Professor William H. Payne, a prominent American educator, ^^The neutrality, or absolute non-theological character of the school, in all its grades, is but the application to the school of a rule that has prevailed in all our social institutions." The conclusion is self-evident. The State must have schools to educate its children, for no State can long endure whose children are not educated in hearty sympathy with its institutions and in accord with its own fundamental principles. But, as the Secular State, which our Nation is, by manifest destiny and by the express decla- ration of its fundamental law, has no religion, it follows, as a necessity, that its school can AMERICAN EDUCATION 27 rightfully and lawfully have no religious instruc- tion whatever. There is no possible escape from this logic. ^'Compulsory support, by taxation or otherwise, of religious instruction, is not law- ful under any of the American constitutions,'^ is the conclusion of Judge Thomas M. Cooley, one of America's greatest jurists. ^ To demand that there be religious instruction in our Public Schools is virtually to demand that the State shall cease to be secular by estab- lishing a religion and becoming ecclesiastical. Logically, there is no stopping short of a State religion, if religious instruction is insisted upon in the Public Schools ; for how can a State school teach religion when the State itself has no relig- ion % The primary question is : Shall the State be secular or ecclesiastical? The school ques- tion is a minor problem dependent upon this. If we put religious instruction into the schools, we cannot logically stop until we put the religious dogma taught into our Constitution ; but this would destroy our Secular State. Let, then, every man who is in favor of religious instruc- tion in our Public Schools consider well the implication of his demand. Does he want a 28 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN State Eeligion ! If not, then liis request is per- fectly illogical. It is our duty as American citizens not only squarely to face this issue, but to keep it clearly before us. The greatness of the problem cannot be exaggerated ; for on it hangs the destiny not only of our American system of government, but of modern civilization itself. At the bottom, it is not a question of Bible-reading, or of the fort- unes of a particular statute, or even of moral and religious education. The question is whether we shall maintain the Modern State as a secular institution and its necessary function of secular education, or whether we shall surrender to clericalism and turn human progress back four centuries ? Let us, then, clear away all these mere details about the teaching of ethics and the reading of Scripture, and face the real issue with clear eye and sober judgment. We need to recognize that the perpetuity of civil liberty and modern civilization depends upon the maintenance of the Public School with its free instruction, neutral toward all theological questions ; and we need also to recognize that the opposition to our sys- AMERICAN EDUCATION 29" tern of secular education is deep-seated and far- reaching. Surrender to this opposition means the extinction of American liberty, and any compromise that shall impair the efSciency and sovereignty of American citizenship means an eclipse of humanity. We must discuss this ques- tion in a large way, without passion and with- out prejudice, but with a full appreciation of the magnitude of the issue, and a clear realization of the intent and strength of the opposition. The point to be kept constantly in mind and strongly emphasized is this : The Secular State, from reasons both of justice and of policy, with- draws from the sphere of human thought and action that we call religious ,* and, having with- drawn, it cannot rightfully and lawfully enter it again in the direction of religious education, for the State cannot carry any religion into the school-house until it adopts a religion, and then it would cease to be secular. The American Nation is the enemy of no religion, but the friend of all faiths j the patron and partner of no church, but the protector of all churches. But there are Protestants who seem ro forget this important truth. Eev. Dr. A. A. Hodge 30 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN strangely asserted some ten years agO; '^Tlie system of Public Schools must be held, in their sphere, true to the claims of Christianity, or they must go, with all other enemies of Christ, to the wall." But the schools of a Secular State can have nothing to do with the super- natural, or with any other, claims of relig- ion. To be non- denominational is not enough : they must teach no religious dogma. Yet, in taking this position, they become enemies of nothing but intolerance and superstition. In this fact, that the State is secular, lies the answer to those who favor providing various kinds of religious instruction in our common schools, according to the religious beliefs of the families represented. The State can no more have a multiform religion than a single estab- lished faith. It ean no more teach three dogmas about God than one ; for as a Secular State, it has relinquished all teaching in that direction. In this fact, also, lies the answer to those who are asking for a division of the public funds among denominational schools. To tax people in order to support denominational schools is an ecclesiastical business : it is becoming a party to AMERICAN EDUCATION 31 religious instruction. And a Secular State can engage in no such business : it can never be tlie agent of any religious organization. There is one thing in this connection often overlooked, to which attention needs to be called. The Eoman Catholic argument against secular schools is, in its essential nature and by logical implication, an argument against the Secular State. The Catholic demand, if allowed, would compel our government to go to Eome for orders respecting everything, and so surrender not only its essential functions of education, but its very existence as an independent institution. The Catholics have, primarily, the same objec- tion to godless governments as to godless schools. They hold to De Maistre's ideal, — that the spiritual power ought to control the temporal power. Their objections, brought against the secular schools, are equally applicable to the secular character of the Nation itself ; and the Papal Hierarchy, victorious over the Public Schools, would not be satisfied until it destroyed the Secular State. If the Catholics succeed in closing the Public Schools, they will restate and reapply their old 32 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN argument, thus : We object to paying taxes to support a godless State. No compromise will satisfy them, — neither rejecting the Bible nor in- troducing the primary affirmations of universal religion. Eome temporarily accepts the inevi- table, but never compromises. The real question at the bottom of all this agitation is, Shall we maintain our Secular State, or go back to the Dark Ages? Whenever discussing the school question, we must always remember that it is only a subordinate part of that larger problem. And it will be well if careless critics of our Pub- lic Schools lay to heart in this connection a sol- emn warning. Let such persons remember that by these very denunciations they are putting a club into the hands of clerical opponents by which they will strive to strike down, not simply the secular school, but the Secular State. They even now quote with great glee these Protestant criticisms of the Public Schools. Our secular schools are far from perfect ; but, on the whole, they are the best that the world has ever had, and their underlying policy must be maintained if we keep the Secular State. So, unless one wishes to be- AMERICAN EDUCATION 33 come a coadjutor of Eome, let him support and improve, but not malign, the common school system. The American State guarantees to all the right to believe as they see fit respecting re- ligious problems, but it grants to none the lib- erty to imperil its own life. As the State, by manifest destiny and organic law, is secular j as it must educate its children to preserve and per- petuate its own life ; and as its schools must be as secular as its own character, having no re- ligion of its own to put into its system of educa- tion, — it follows of necessity that an attack upon our Public Schools is, by implication, an attack upon our form of government. Every one is free to criticise the schook for their improvement, but no one has any right to attack them in order to destroy them and the Secular State which stands behind them. Xo one has a right to strike at the life of the Modern State by striking at the secular Public School, which is a vital organ of the Modern State, embodying its pri- mary principles and guarding its most precious interests. The objection is made that the Public School, as at present conducted, is godless. But a sec- 34 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN ular school is no more godless than a Secular State J and, If the children belonging to any church must leave the Public School because it does not teach dogma, why ought not their parents to leave the United States because as a ^N'ation we have no creed? And yet, why should the simple teaching of reading, grammar, and mathematics, be called godless? Is a tem- perance convention godless because not held under the shadow of a crucifix? What truth is there in the claim that fractions and the cate- chism can be most successfully taught only when they are taught together ? Will not the ritual take effect unless accompanied by the multipli- cation table ? There certainly is no ground for calling the purely secular Public School godless ; nor is there any reason in the nature of things why secular knowledge and religious dogma must accompany each other, in order that both be made effectual. The character and influence of our Public Schools are shaped and determined by the teachers who preside over them. Who, then, are American teachers? Look at the men and women who come together in State and l^ational A3IERICAN EDUCATION 35 teacliers' associations. Who are they? The most thoughtful, earnest, hard-working, pains- taking, and self-sacrificing class in the State. In intelligence, singleness of purpose, purity of life, there is not a priesthood in the world that outranks them ; and there are few that equal them. Is it not a frightful slander to call our Public Schools irreligious, when, in fact, they are taught by as noble and saintly a band of workers as ever consecrated themselves to the service of humanity ? It is imiDossible to make the American people believe that our secular schools are turning our land into a Sodom, as eminent ecclesiastics un- fortunately declare, so long as they are under the direction of such men and women. Nor can we set a system down as a failure which has given us our Websters, Garfields, Greeleys, our Garrisons, Parkers, and Whittiers. And it is a shame to call our schools godless, when taught by such noble men and women as those who form the great army of Public School teachers, among whom may be found devout persons of every faith in the land. God may not be there in the dead words of a dogmatic catechism ; but 36 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN he is there in the heart and brain of the true teacher, which is infinitely better. There is nothing so godless as the imposition of dogma which paralyzes the growing reason of a child. There are churchmen who contend that their people ought to be relieved from the burden of the unjust taxation imposed upon them for the support of the Public School, because they already support parochial schools of their own. Let us look carefully and candidly at this matter. The State exists to protect life and property and to promote the temporal welfare of mankind, and for these ends it works through certain methods and agencies, which begin with the exercise of suffrage ; and whatever means are needed for these ends the State must use. So that the State taxes all, in order to give every child that knowl- edge most needed by an American citizen, this much being necessary to insure intelligent citi- zenship. This right the State has j and, if true to itself, it must exercise it. "When the churchman objects that it is unjust to tax him to support what he cannot use, he takes a position which the State must ignore j for it has no right to sit in judgment upon the relig- AMERICAN EDUCATION 37 ious beliefs of its citizens, in order to make such distinctions between them. Moreover, by this claim the churchman puts himself above the au- thority of the State, which in matters pertaining to citizenship must be supreme. A body of people cannot be excused from paying taxes to support courts and poorhouses on the plea that they have religious scruples against making use of them or because they take care of their own poor and never go to law. Whatever hardships come to the members of any religious body in this connection are self-imposed by a religious belief, of which the State can take no account and with which it can make no compact. The State protects all forms of religion, but it must stop there : it cannot take cognizance of religious be- liefe, which traverse its own rights, in order to absolve citizens from their responsibilities of citizenship. There are those who, assuming to speak in be- half of the family, claim that the secular school interferes with the right of parents to give their children a religious education. It is true that the parent has sole guardianship of the child as a social and religious being : this special paren- 38 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN tal right the State must respect. But children are also citizens in embryo, and in that respect they are children of the State. The State is hound to protect them in all their civil estate : it has a prospective claim upon their services in case of war j it is responsible for their training in citizenship, because it must protect its own life and provide for the perpetuity of its own insti- tutions. And this claim upon the child as a prospective citizen is, in a way, superior to all parental rights, though not in conflict with them. The State has a claim upon the child in the line of citizenship which the parent must re- spect. But the rights of the parent to deter- mine and guide the religious training of his children are not menaced by the State's asser- tion of its own claim respecting education. And it is certainly a curious spectacle to see churchmen who recognize no liberty of private judgment in religious matters, and grant parents no freedom whatever for themselves or their children, condemning the State because it de- stroys parental freedom, — what they themselves do not grant ! It is true that we have not everywhere se- AMERICAN EDUCATION 39 cured religious neutrality in the Public Schools. There are localities where chapel exercises of a very definite theological character are still held, attendance upon which is compulsory. There are schools where the Bible is read as a part of a religious service. There are places where the religious beliefs of teachers are taken into ac- count by school boards, and persons of certain types of faith are discriminated against. There are American cities where public funds, belong- ing to the common schools, are paid to members of religious orders, who teach church schools in buildings owned by the church and not by the State. There are other cities in our land where teachers are not allowed to teach the plainest facts of history in connection with the story of the Eeformation ! But these are exceptional cases. The movement in education is not toward these things, but away from them. President J. G. Schurman, of Cornell Univer- sity, has recently proposed a plan by which the Public Schools and the churches might work to- gether for moral and religious instruction. His thought is that, in the present state of religion in America, Protestants might unite for this pur- 40 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN pose. In a town in wliicli there are several re- ligious denominations, he would have the board of education invite the clergy to arrange a plan for religious instruction, and place at their dis- posal a portion of time each day in which all other school work should be suspended and all pupils who were willing should attend the in- struction given by the clergy. He would have the same provision made for Eoman Catholics in towns where they desired it. President Schur- man believes that a profitable alliance might thus be arranged between the churches and the schools. The objections to such a plan as this proposed by President Schurman, and approved by some other eminent educators in our country, are numerous and weighty : {a) The Public Schools are already overcrowded with topics of study and courses of instruction. This would greatly increase a burden now already excessive. It would involve the use of time which the teacher needs for the specific work of the school. (6) This policy would work injury in another direction. The thing most imperative to-day is to hold the home and the church responsible AMERICAN EDUCATION 41 for the moral and religious training of the young. What we need everywhere at present is increasing emphasis in this direction. The par- ent and the j)reacher must be stirred to new activity. They ought to be made to feel that here is a work that they must not shirk, that they must not hand over to another agency. The plan proposed would still farther weaken parental responsibility in this line. It would also unfortunately lessen the sense of obligation in the church. (c) The attemx)t to carry out this policy would postpone the realization of the religious unity toward which we have recently made such satisfactory progress. Instead of promoting, it would lessen the friendliness which now exists among the churches. We should soon lose the fairest gain of the last century, and the now ex- tinct volcanoes of prejudice and intolerance would presently be in active operation. The splendid good feeling in the religious world at this time, instead of inviting such a scheme, is itself an argument against it : Let us maintain the policy by which these blessings have been won. 42 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN (Tew York, in his Kst 58 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN report (1903). The argument of Mr. Skinner and those who agree with him does not, however, touch the point. The secular school must be more than non-sectarian : it must be religiously neutral. Eeligious freedom means more than the absence of sectarian instruction : it means the absence of all religious exercises and theo- logical teachings. The Bible- reading may be non-sectarian (although this is unusual) ; but, if engaged in as a religious exercise, which is the custom, if the Bible is treated as a revelation, it is contrary to the spirit and law of the Secular State, however frequently this may have been done in the past. And, as a matter of fact, the Bible is virtually and necessarily made a sectarian book by those who use it, whether in church or school, — just as sectarian as those who read it. Because it has a great variety of teachings upon life and religion, it is the source of all the sects: this church uses and emphasizes one line of passages, while an- other church uses and emphasizes some other line of texts. All the sects have some Scriptu- ral warrant : no sect represents the whole Bible. This is obvious. Therefore, a Presbyterian, in AMERICAN" EDUCATION 59 selecting and reading passages, will naturally bring the Bible to the support of his Presbyte- rianism, however fair he may try to be. These are the chapters familiar to him. Naturally, too, as one reads, he emphasizes the language so as to make prominent his own personal views. The TJniversalist will do the same. So also will the Jew. While the follower of Mr. Ingersoll (as has been done) will select passages that few religious people would like to have their chil- dren hear. Hence we claim that, however un- sectarian the noblest parts of the Bible may be, its use is sure to be sectarian, and so a violation of religious freedom in education. We hear it said that stopping such Bible-read- ings is really closing the fountain of civilization from which our fathers drew their inspiration. Now, without attempting to give any estimate of the Bible as a civilizing agent, we may safely say that our forefathers got whatever they did out of the Bible by a process very different from the Bible-reading which we are asked to have retained in our common school instruction or put into our Public Schools. What they got out of the Bible they obtained by a prolonged 60 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN private study, not from the formal reading of a few isolated verses by the schoolmaster once a day during term. This form of argument does our forefathers injustice j and, were they able to speak to us, they would denounce the asser- tion that such Bible -readings were the foun- tains of their civilization. There are people who in view of the fact that the rising generation seems to be alarmingly ignorant of the Bible, demand that it be put back into the Public School, in order to cure this growing evil. The ignorance does exist, and it is a misfortune ; but the remedy proposed is unwise. Why not make a demand upon Christian parents that they do their duty in this respect as faithfully as our grandparents attended to their religious duties? Let the churches also be stirred to action. They are the special custodians and friends of the Bible. Since there are a hundred thousand pulpits and a million Sunday-school teachers engaged in enforcing the Scriptures in our land, it is folly to claim that ceasing to use it for religious pur- poses in the Public Schools is depriving our people of the Bible. AMERICAN EDUCATION 61 We hear it said, also, tliat it is wrong for our Public Schools to teach the history of Csesar and rule out the history of Christ. But the story of Jesus' life, when taught as Caesar's life is taught, is not ruled out. It is only the dogmas about Jesus that are excluded j and, if such dogmas clustered about Csesar, they, too, would be ruled out. It is needless in the discussion of this sub- ject to consider the character of the Bible. It is unnecessary, for instance, to show that some of its ideas of nature are contrary to those taught the child by science, that some of its morals are barbarous, that its historical statements are some- times conflicting and incorrect. The whole question turns upon the fact that such Bible- reading as is demanded, being a religious exer- cise, is contrary to the spirit and law of the Secular State. The argument lies, not against the imperfect character of the Bible, but against the ecclesiastical use of it in a secular school. Doubtless, the strongest and most temperate argument for the use of the Bible in the Public Schools was made by Horace Mann in the Eighth and Twelfth Eeports of the Massachusetts Board of Education. Mr. Mann said all that can be 62 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN said on that side, and he wrote with great clear- ness and earnestness. And, though we must all honor him as a most excellent man who did a monumental work for American education, yet it is evident, I think, to the student to-day that his argument fails to make good his thesis. It must be remembered that Horace Mann wrote more than half a century ago, before the secular character of our government was as clear to people as it is to-day. And, as we turn his pages, we see that he was fatally hampered by two considerations. He wished to commend popular education as far as possible to a prej- udiced public, especially sensititive at this point. He was willing to sacrifice a good deal to make the system successful as a whole. Again, the atmosphere of Mr. Mann's own life was filled with notions inherited from Puri- tan New England, some of which have since passed away ; but they kept him at that time from a clear apprehension of the essential char- acter of our secular government. He was two generations nearer the Mathers than we, and on this account he was unable to look upon this question as rationally as he would if alive to-day. AMERICAN EDUCATION 63 His argument is pervaded with assumptions which he never would have made if he had fully gras]Ded the meaning of the secularization of the State, the great and beneficent historical move- ment which has given us the American Ideal and the American K"ation. Passing, however, from this point of view, it seems perfectly self-evident that such merely formal and fragmentary Bible- reading is neither just to the Bible nor beneficial to the pupil. It is using the Bible as a fetich, as a thing of magi- cal power, rather than as a record of truth and aspiration. Beading the Bible ^^ without com- ment" is the very worst kind of reading, — a practice sure to become a dead formality, a prac- tice that makes the Bible an object of supersti- tion. Our Puritan ancestors understood this so well that they would not have any such Bible- reading even in their church services. It would be difficult to find any one who was ever led to understand or love the Bible by such formal readings, '^without comment." We treat no other literature so foolishly. And, to produce deep religious impressions, there must be conditions which cannot be ob- 64 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN tained at such a service in the ordinary school- room. Nothing can be worse than for a pupil, day after day, to sit unmoved through a relig- ious formality. Those who depend upon short and formal Bible-readings as an efiSicient means of religious culture lean upon a broken staff; and it is because we look upon religious culture as such a large and important interest that we enter our emphatic judgment against depen- dence upon that practice. The few most notable judicial decisions re- specting the use of the Bible in the Public Schools are deserving especial attention. And the starting-point may well be found in the opening sentence of Article 3 of the Ordinance of 1787 for the government of the Northwest Territory, — ^^Eeligion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged. J? It has been claimed by men of distinction, and no doubt believed by many, that this pro- vision of the Ordinance of 1787 imposed a duty upon the States organized out of the territory AMERICAN EDUCATION 65 north-west of the Ohio Eiver to teach religion in the Public Schools. It was said by some that, religion, morality, and knowledge being neces- sary to good government and the hapi)iness of mankind, schools aud the means of education must be made use of to teach religion, morality, and knowledge ; while others said that, the ex- tent of the meaning of the language is that, if schools and the means of education are forever encouraged, then religion, morality, and knowl- edge will inevitably follow, claiming that the first construction violates the idea of a purely Secular State, which is manifestly the spirit of the Federal Union. To find a warrant for religious instruction or regular Bible-reading in the language of this Ordinance is to misuse these words and give them an application not supported by logic or his- tory. (1) The men prominent in the direction of our general government at that time held very broad principles of religious liberty, and they under- stood the basic principle respecting the separa- tion of church and State. Their position is too well known to i)ermit us for a moment to sup- QQ RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN , pose that they had any such policy in mind as the advocates of Bible- reading in our schools claim. Moreover, the statement under discus- sion must be read in the light of other state- ments in the same document, such as the follow- ing : The object of the Ordinance is defined to be ^Ho extend the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty, which form the basis whereon these republics^ their laws and constitutions^ are erected ' ' / Those who used this language about ^ ^ religious liberty ' ' could not have meant that there should be compulsory religious instruc- tion in the schools, as is contended by those who argue for the use of the Bible in State schools. (2) The American Congress that formulated this document never assumed to possess a body of religious beliefe, and it never attempted to interfere in the management of ecclesiastical affairs. As it was not in possession of any relig- ion of its own to bestow, and as authority in re- ligious matters was not included among its powers, that Congress could not inject into one of its creations something that lay quite apart from its own being. It had no right, and it AMERICAN EDUCATION 67 certainly never intended, to legislate in behalf of religious interests. Moreover, even if the members of that body had tried to do what is claimed, their action would have been null and void, because the act of the people of the colonies in calling them together conferred upon them no religious or ecclesiastical functions. It may seem quite needless to pay even pass- ing attention to this argument, which is like a pyramid set upon its apex. But some allusion to it is apparently still necessary j for there are among us a few educators who hark back to this inconclusive argument, while prominent clergymen are now and. then heard repeating the discredited propositions. Surely, a case that has to plead its cause with such ancient sophistries has no solid basis upon which to rest. In the Constitution of Ohio, however, the sub- stance of the text, just quoted from the Ordi- nance, was incorporated, without attempting any settlement of the dispute as to the meaning of the words used. For some years it was un- doubtedly considered by those in authority that the Bible was an essential part of the school curriculum, for it was commonly read in the 68 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN opening exercises of the schools in that State until 1870. In that year the Board of Education of the City of Cincinnati passed resolutions forbidding further reading from the Bible, and immediately a storm arose upon the political horizon. A petition was filed in court by certain citi- zens of the municijDality x-raying for a decree commanding the School Board to rescind its ac- tion and restore the Bible to its former use in the schools j and the case was rested upon the ground above alluded to, that the law quoted above did really lay upon the government a posi- tive duty to teach religion in its schools. In the lower court a majority of the judges held that the relief should be granted and the Bible-readings should be resumed in the Public Schools. The case was taken to the Supreme Court by the Board of Education, where it was argued upon both sides by counsel eminent in their profession and of more than local reputation. Stanley Matthews, afterwards Attorney-general and one of the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, appeared for the Board of Education ; and, although he i^rotested that he was AMERICAN EDUCATION 69 a firm believer in the divine inspiration and in- fallibility of the Bible, he contended against the use of the book in the schools. And the Supreme Court unanimously held, in accordance with his contention, that the Board had the right to ex- clude the Bible ; and the resolutions were accordr ingly sustained. The question was presented to the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, in 1890, in the case of the State upon relation of "Weiss against the Edger- ton School Board. In that case it appeared that the King James' Version of the Bible was one of the regularly adopted text-books, and was read at the opening exercises of the various Pub- lic Schools. Certain citizens of the city of Edg- erton complained of the practice as being in violation of the provision of the Constitution of Wisconsin, that the schools should not be made use of for sectarian instruction j and they peti- tioned the Court for a mandamus to prevent it. It was claimed by the learned counsel for the School Board that the Christian religion had been embodied in the fundamental laws of^the American colonies, and that by virtue of the Ordinance of 1787 it became a part of the funda- 70 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN mental law of the State of Wisconsin. The de- cision of the Court was unanimous against the claim of the Board, and a peremptory writ was ordered as prayed in the petition. In disposing of the case, the Court used the following language: ^^The reading of any ver- sion of the Holy Bible in the common schools as a text-book without restriction, although not accompanied by any comment by the instructor, is sectarian instruction within the meaning of Section 3 of Article X. of the Wisconsin Con- stitution, and is thereby prohibited ; nor is the prohibition removed by the fact that any child may withdraw from such school- room during such reading." In Michigan, notwithstanding the plain pro- vision of the fundamental law of the State that the legislature shall not compel any person to pay tithes, taxes, or other rates for the support of any minister of the gospel or teacher of re- ligion, the Bible is quite generally used in the morning exercises in the Public Schools, espe- cially in the rural districts. Mutterings of opposition were heard from time to time until in 1896 a committee of clergymen^ AMERICAN EDUCATION 71 working under the auspices of the Chicago Woman's Educational Union, prepared a little book called '■ ' Eeadings from the Bible Selected for Schools," consisting of a large number of Scripture quotations arranged in groups j and the School Board of the City of Detroit adopted it for the schools of that city. A short time after its introduction a number of citizens commenced proceedings in the courts to restrain the practice on the ground that they were taxed for the supi)ort of a teacher of re- ligion, although the readings were without note or comment. The circuit court held that the objection was well taken, and granted the in- junction. The case was taken to the Supreme Court, where it was presented with fulness and ability ; but a majority of the Court held that the judg- ment of the lower court should be reversed, not upon the theory that the Ordinance of 1787 re- quired the teaching of religion, but upon the ground that the use of the book, ^^ Eeadings from the Bible," read without note or comment, did not constitute the reader a teacher of religion. These decisions are all very decisive in favor 72 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN of the secular character of the Public School, although that of the Michigan Court seems to lack both judicial weight and civic wisdom. The Supreme Court of the State of IsTebraska has recently (Oct. 9, 1902) rendered a deci- sion on this subject in harmony with that given by the "Wisconsin Court. It is known as State v. Scheve. The facts are these : In a Public School in Gage County, which the children of Daniel Freeman attended, certain religious exer- cises were held daily, that consisted of prayer, singing of hymns, and the reading of passages from the Bible, — King James' Version. The point at issue was whether such exercises are contrary to the Constitution of the State. The Court in its decision first referred to these two provisions of the State Constitution: ^^All persons have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences. No person shall be compelled to attend, erect, or support any place of worship against his consent, and no preference shall be given by law to any religious society, nor shall any interference with the rights of conscience be permitted" (Art. I., Sect. 4). AMERICAN EDUCATION 73 Abo : ^^1^0 sectarian instruction shall be allowed in any school or institution supported, in whole or in part, by the public funds set apart for educational purposes " (Art. YIIL, Sect. 11). The decision of the Court sustained the con- tention of Mr. Freeman, and the syllabus by the Court is as follows : ^^ Exercises by a teacher in a Public School in a school building, in school hours, and in the presence of the pupils, consist- ing of the reading of passages from the Bible, and in the singing of songs and hymns, and offer- ing prayer to the Deity in accordance with the doctrines, beliefs, customs, or usages of sectarian churches or religious organizations, is forbidden by the Constitution of this State. " It is a sig- nificant fact that the Court did not apparently deem it necessary to enter into an elaborate argument in support of its decision, taking it for granted that the general principle at issue is so widely accepted that it needed no extended dis- cussion. Eeference is made to the Wisconsin decision as thorough and conclusive : ^^ We think it, therefore, sufficient for our purpose to direct attention to that authority." In passing, it ought to be stated that the 74 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN courts of final jurisdiction in a few States, nota- bly Maine, Massacliusetts, and Connecticut, have sustained tlie position that the teacher has the right under the constitutions of these States to read the Bible in the Public Schools ; and it is so read in many places in that part of our country. The situation in the State of Kew York is somewhat peculiar. In a general act relative to education passed in 1851, after a provision prohibiting the use of public funds in aid of schools connected with or supported by any re- ligious body, this language was used : ^ ^ But nothing herein contained shall authorize the board of education to exclude the Holy Script- ures without note or comment, or any selection therefrom, from any of the Public Schools pro- vided for in this act" (Chap. 386, Sect. 18). This permissive statute is still in force. In the city of New York the Board of Education has used the power here granted to require the read- ing of the Bible in the common schools. The reading of the Bible is still maintained in a majority of the 'State schools, although it has been abandoned in many places in recent years. AMERICAN ED UCA TION 75 The State courts have never passed upon this question. Previous to 1894^ sectarian schools^ whose students passed the Eegents^ Examinations, re- ceived the regular per capita allowance from the annual income of the Literature Fund of the State (about $10,000 a year). To prevent this, the following language was used in the new constitution framed that year: '^Neither the State, nor any subdivision thereof, shall use its property or credit or any public money, or authorize or permit either to be used, directly or indirectly in aid or maintenance, other than for examination or inspection, of any school or institution of learning wholly or in part under the control or direction of any religious de- nomination, or in which any denominational tenet or doctrine is taught^' (Art. IX., Sect. 4). In reporting this matter to the Constitutional Convention of 1894, Hon. F. W. HoUs, in re- ferring to the apportionment of the income from the Literature Fund to sectarian as well as Public Schools, used these words: ^^This part of the States' assistance is, in our opinion, con- tary to sound principles of separation of church 76 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN and State, and will be absolutely prohibited by the adoption of our proposed amendment. ' ' The two hopeful facts in the State of New York are these : a slowly growing tendency to discontinue the reading of the Bible in the Public SchoolS; while the small State aid to sectarian schools has been stopped. Whatever public funds find their way in that State to the hands of religious brotherhoods or church schools, it is in plain violation of both the con- titution and the statutes of the State. The decision of the Supreme Court of Wiscon- sin may well be called epoch-making. It stands as the clearest and most decisive deliverance so far made in our country on this subject. It made a profound imiDression ; it has had a very power- ful influence. While some of the narrower dog- matists in various churches at once condemned it as revolutionary and unchristian, still it has been widely accepted as a just decision, — as the only one that could be made in loyalty to the fundamental <;haracter of our government. There are many public men, especially clergymen, who do not accept the principles here set forth. Some eminent educators still contend for the AMERICAN EDUCATION 77 old order. There are many Public Schools in which the Bible is still used. But the ten- dency all over our country is toward the accept- ance of the Wisconsin decision as an authorita- tive description of true Americanism. Two recent incidents (many similar ones might be cited) illustrate the truth that the national consciousness is becoming clear and strong in this precise direction. The attorney-general of the State of Montana, Hon. H. J. Haskell, has, in a recent decision, taken the same positions and af&rmed the same principles as those occu- pied and asserted by the Supreme Court of Wis- consin. In a recent sermon, Eev. Dr. Tennis S. Hamlin, of Washington, D.C., one of the most prominent clergymen of the Presbyterian Church, forcibly advocated the complete secularization of our schools in the line of what has here been written ; and he is only one of an ever- increas- ing cloud of witnesses to the wisdom and justice of this policy. A very large number of our teachers, — per- sons, too, of religious convictions and spiritual earnestness, — through a clearer recognition that the specific business of the Public Schools is the 78 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN acquisition of knowledge, have already come to the conclusion, in no opposition to religion and in no unfriendliness toward the Bible, that the interests of these schools are best promoted by making no formal use of the Scriptures in them. So that common experience has, in large sections of our country, reached that practical conclu- sion which the courts have affirmed as the teach- ing of the fundamental laws of the land. How this result warrants the charge that these schools are godless is beyond comprehension. It is difficult to see how a bank is made godless by neglecting to compel a man to read a chapter in the Bible before he deposits his money. If there is any place which is really and pre- eminently godly, it is the Public School, where children of all sects, races, and conditions, meet upon absolute equality to acquire knowledge, to be trained in justice, fidelity, and universal fellowship, and to be inducted into the rights and sanctities of citizenship. God may not be there in any dogmatic definition, but, what is infinitely better, he is there in the heart of the teacher, and in the very atmosphere of the school- room j and how a formal reading of the AMERICAN . ED UCA TION 79 Bible would bring him any nearer it would be hard to prove or explain. That ^we need more reverence in our youth, that deeper consecration ought to be inwrought with our educational methods, that our school- rooms ought to be lighted up by inspiring ideals, — all this is indeed true ; and these truths are insisted upon by the friends of the Secular State as much as by churchmen. But the wise educator sees that the formal reading of the Bible without comment, under the inevitable conditions of the ordinary school- rooms, is not the true method for the cultivation of these spiritual graces. And, while this practice exists and is depended upon as adequate, nothing more rational will be done. Just here has been our misfortune in the past. But a better day is coming for the Bible and for the pupil, for education and for religion. When the Public Schools no longer indulge in religious exercises and Bible-readings, which they cannot legally or successfully carry forward, then par- ents and churches, brought to a keen realization of their responsibilities, will engage much more actively in this precious work of religious train- 80 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN ing, to wh-icli they have given but slight or in- adequate attention. As long as there was a formal use of the Bible in the Public Schools, the parent lazily felt that all was going well with the child, when really nothing of impor- tance was being done in this direction. As soon as the common school abandons this fruitless and unwise policy, then the parent will bestir himself to insure his child religious instruction and fa- miliarity with the Bible. He will see that the church is the proper institution to accomplish this work 5 and, whatever new machinery may be needed in order that it may be better done, he will make sure that it is provided. The result will be that parents will more fully appreciate the value of the church when they understand that it is engaged in doing something important for their child which the Public School cannot do, and this will lead to a more generous support of the church. On the other hand, the church, enriched and strength- ened by this new parental interest, and awakened to a keener consciousness of its own task, will prosper as never before. The church will take in hand the work of religious training, and carry A MERICAN, ED UCA TION 81 it forward by larger metliods and in a more modern spirit. And all this will place religion before the community in a more attractive light, while it will bring into the fold of the church men and women not only better equipped for its service, but better prepared for all their duties in life. And the child, — what of him! He will un- derstand and love the Bible as never before, be- cause, instead of a formal and perfunctory read- ing forced upon him at an inopportune time, and too scant and fragmentary to kindle interest or be of use, — instead of this barren exercise, he will be sympathetically and thoroughly in- structed in Scripture at home and at church, so that what was once hated he will come to ap- preciate and be able to use. A new interest will grow up in him toward the church, because he will see that it has rendered him an invaluable service ; while religion, no longer forced upon him as a matter of compulsion in an uncongenial atmosphere at an inappropriate moment, will secure in him a more loving disciple by coming to him in the winsome instruction of an affection- ate parent or by the attractive teaching of a spiritual church. 82 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM That is the best arrangement, for all interests and institutions, which keeps the Public School close to its special work and frees it from all other responsibilities, which commits religious instruction to those who are called of God to give it, and which leaves the Bible to make its way into the heart, not by compulsion and formality, but along the lines of persuasion which centre in home and church. THE RELIGIOUS MOTIVE AND HIGHER EDUCATION THE RELIGIOUS MOTIVE AND HIGHER EDUCATION Before the nineteenth century the founding of academies and colleges in America was al- most solely the product of religious interest and church enterprise. The academies and semina- ries so thickly strewn, especially over New Eng- land, were established by devout churchmen, in order to promote the Christian faith. In some instances, like the Roxbury Latin School and the Boston Latin School, civic enthusiasm was more prominent than ecclesiastical zeal. But as a rule, the impulse that lead to the organization of institutions of higher learning was distinctly and strongly religious, sometimes even warmly and narrowly denominational. A great many colleges, like Williams (1793) and Amherst (1821), had their origin in a desire to provide inducement and opportunity for young men to enter the ministry. In the early years, charity students in preparation for the 85 86 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN pulpit were common. Up to 1850, in these and other similar institutions; a very large propor- tion of the graduates entered the ministry, while many became missionaries in the Great West or in foreign lands. In recent years the tendency in these schools has been decidedly away from clerical pursuits. The percentage of graduates who now become ministers has fallen almost to the vanishing point, as low as 5 per cent, in some cases. A distinct missionary enthusiasm led to the founding of some colleges. Here was the origin of Dartmouth, 1769, — where young Indians were to be civilized and Christianized. A very positive denominational interest pro- duced such institutions as Brown (Baptist) in 1765; Kings' — now Columbia University — (Episcopal) in 1754 ; Dickinson (Methodist Episcopal) in 1783 ; and Bowdoin (Congrega- tional) in 1794. A more intense interest, reach- ing what may be called the sectarian spirit, operated in establishing Princeton (Presbyterian) in 1746 and Eutgers (Dutch Eeform) in 1770. There is a clear distinction between denomina- tional enthusiasm and a sectarian spirit. The former is more open, progressive, and tolerant : AMERICAN EDUCATION 87 the latter is more narrow, dogmatic, and exclu- sive. The one works for its own church, but with an eye to the larger interests of the whole Christian world : the other stands apart from mankind in general with the assumption that its creed alone is true, and its ambition is to bring all others to its peculiar form of faith. The de- nominational leader feels that he is only one of the servants of the Lord, and he is willing to co- operate with the others in bringing in the king- dom of God. The sectarian zealot is sure that he is the chief, if not the only true, follower of the Master, and it is his duty not to co-operate with others, but to convert them to his dogma. All this is stated not in condemnation, but in mere description of states of mind and policies of action which are clearly distinct and often radically different. This may be illustrated, without indulging in invidious comparisons, by looking a moment at two institutions such as Knox College (Congregational) and Albion Col- lege (Methodist Episcopal). In the former there is a strong denominational feeling, but it has never reached the point of intensity that amounts to sectarianism. In the latter institu- 88 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN tion the obvious and declared object is to make Metbodists. So Tufts College was founded to serve the interests of the TJniversalist denomina- tion, but with no assumption that other churches have a radically false interpretation of the Chris- tian life. On the other hand, a very decided sectarian spirit led the Seventh Day Adventists to organize Battle Creek College ] for they hold that on matters of most vital importance they are right and other churches are wrong. The fifty years from 1820 to 1870 may be called the blossom-time of denominational and sectarian activity in education in America. In this period of the great expansion of our national life a remarkable number of institutions of higher learning came into existence. The vari- ous sects in our country were extremely active in founding colleges. About two hundred and fifty institutions, bearing the name of college or University, came into existence in the United States during this period! Some thirty of these were Eoman Catholic. Besides the strictly State institutions (about fifty), nearly all of these owe their existence to the zeal, enterprise, and gener- osity of churchmen. In a great majority of AMERICAN EDUCATION 89 cases — in fact, with very few exceptions — the real founders were clergymen. Among these institutions the one farthest removed from the denominational or sectarian spirit, Washington University (1852), was cre- ated by a clergyman, a man of deep and earnest piety, — Eev. Dr. William G. Eliot. Some of these colleges, with greatest theologi- cal breadth, have been intensely religious in their general spirit, and they have been sup- ported by the self-sacrifice of religious people : Oberlin, which was made the home of urgent spirituality by Charles G. Finney ; Antioch, which rejoices in many precious memories of Horace Mann j Berea, inclusive in spirit, but carrying a definite religious impulse hand in hand with the treasures of learning to the mountain whites of the Appalachian region. But a majority of these institutions were founded to serve and foster church interests, and they have partaken in the past more or less of the sectarian spirit : Pennsylvania Col- lege (1832), devoted to the Lutheran church j Milton College (1867), equally devoted to the cause of the Seventh Day Baptists ; Hobart 90 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN College (1825); maintained with an eye single to the interests of the Episcopal church j Chris- tian University (Canton, Mo., 1853) is a product of the zeal of the Disciples j Cumberland Uni- versity (1842), founded to provide higher edu- cation for the Cumberland Presbyterians ; and Mercer University (1837), organized by South- ern Baptists to promote the interests of their particular church. These and other similar facts show how powerfully the educational im- pulse and interest of Americans worked along denominational, and even sectarian, lines during the middle decades of the last century. The educational impulse did not, however, always work, even in the nineteenth century, through the hands of clergymen or in behalf of church interests. Thomas Jefferson, in found- ing the University of Virginia (1819), did an original and influential work. He was not only a layman, but a man of anti- clerical, though not anti- religious, cast of mind. He was the first great American to work conspicuously for higher education outside church lines and with no specific reference to the cause of religion. His example in time had a profound influence. AMERICAN. EDUCATION 91 especially on the educational policies of the States formed out of the Northwest Territory. Later two other men (very different in the spirit of their lives) contributed to the same movement of education away from ecclesiastical channels : Stephen Girard, who insisted that the institution which he founded should be free from religious instruction and clerical sui^ervision ; and Peter Cooper, who, in organizing his In- stitute, was moved by philanthropic rather than ecclesiastical interests. During the last generation a great change has occurred in the educational impulses, ideals, and methods of the American people. Since about 1870, besides the State Universities and the technical schools, like the Massachusetts In- stitute of Technology and the Case School of Applied Sciences (distinctly secular in charac- ter), a half-dozen great schools have arisen that indicate the direction and character of the domi- nant movement in our educational world, — Cor- nell, Johns Hopkins, Tulane, Chicago, Leland Stanford, Jr., and Clark. The spirit animating the founders of these Universities has been quite unlike that which 92 ' RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN stirred the men wlio built up Amlierst and Trin- ity, and radically different from that which pre- sided over the early history of Princeton and Eutgers. The impelling motive has not been sectarian in any of these institutions, not even mildly denominational in but one. It may be called religious, but religious only in a very large and inclusive sense. The clerical ideal and enthusiasm which once created everything and controlled everything in the realm of edu- cation have had practically nothing to do with the organization or administration of these great institutions. But denominational enterprise and sectarian zeal have not ceased to exist in the educational world of America. It is a remarkable fact that during the last twenty-five years about eighty schools, calling themselves colleges or Universi- ties, have come into existence that frankly take some church name ! They have been estab- lished primarily to maintain a particular form of theological belief. And it is an equally re- markable fact that the total attendance of stu- dents, of what they themselves call the collegiate grade (which of course is far below the standard AMERICAN ED UCA TION 93 of our best schools), is, in these eighty institu- tions about four thousand, — approximately, an average of fifty to a college ! Thirty-three have less than twenty- five so-called collegiate stu- dents ! Altogether, these eighty schools have only about as many collegiate students as Har- vard has in its literary department. These facts show that, while the denominational motive in education has not ceased to operate, it has spent its force. It throws a significant light upon these facts to remember that a very large proportion of these schools are located in the South and the Far West j and they represent, not the need or desire of the local community, but the intrusion of enterprising missionary agents, who in many cases have joined hand with speculators in town sites. So that the denominational enthusiasm is not really as strong as this multiplication of institutions would indicate. Some Conclusions. (1) The work of higher education in America previous to 1870, the organization and adminis- tration of colleges and Universities, was very 94 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN largely in the hands of clergymen ; and these institutions, as a rule, had very close relations with some denomination, while they were com- monly supported because of the aid which they contributed to religion in general and to a cer- tain form of theology in particular. The col- lege was founded as the means to a specific end, and that end was chiefly the training of ministers and the good of a particular church. Before 1850, Horace Mann was conspicuous as one of the few laymen who, up to that time, had done distinguished service for the cause of public education. And as late as 1860 the man who had accomplished more than any one else in developing the ideals of University training in our country was a clergyman, Eev. Dr. Henry P. Tappan. Much of the work done for education in the "West by the States themselves in those early times was inspired and directed by ministers. This was notably the case in Michigan, where John D. Pierce, a minister, did a great work, not only in helping to create the. State University (1837), but in organizing the common school system and in pleading for the professional instruction of teachers in a Kormal AMERICAN EDUCATION 95 School, which was established in 1852, — the first west of the Hudson Eiver. (2) When the new commonwealths began to come into existence in the great Northwest, these States took up the problems of education from a fresh point of view and in an original spirit. The statesmen who led in these matters (and among them were some men of large and noble ideals) had a free hand such as nation-builders have seldom enjoyed. There were special influences at work favor- able not only to institutions of higher educa- tion, but to institutions of a non- clerical and secular character. In the first place, such mat- ters as religious liberty and the separation of church and State were at the front in the public mind ; and very clear ideas had come into promi- nence, which are embodied in the constitutions of these States. In the next place, the public lands, set apart for educational purposes by the acts of Congress organizing these States, made the creation of colleges and Universities an easy and a necessary undertaking. And, in the last place, the influence of Jefi'erson, to which al- lusion has been made, was of considerable 96 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN weight. These and other causes brought into existence the State Universities that have grown to very large proportions and very great in- fluence. These State institutions, of necessity, followed the secular character of the States creating them. Being maintained by the whole people for the whole people, these schools must be neutral re- specting matters of dogma and rite. This was not realized at once, but a common movement toward the position was inevitable : it was im- plicated in the situation. Here was a new type of educational institution, created not by cler- gymen for the church, but by statesmen for the commonwealth. It received support from all the people, and it served the interests of all classes. It was not fostered by a single group of churchmen to further the interests of one denom- ination. With a broader basis, a larger spirit, and a more ample supjoort, no wonder that the State Universities have grown faster than the neighboring denominational colleges. They have not only developed in response to the logic of the situation a non- clerical and secular ideal and method of education in themselves, but they AMERICAN EDUCATION 97 have also led tliese other schools to decided prog- ress in the same direction. The change that has come over educational affairs in the Central West, largely due to these State Universities, is well indicated by the simple comparison of the number of students in them and in denominational colleges in the same States. In the State University of Iowa, 1,600 students : in the largest denominational institu- tion in Iowa, less than 300 collegiate students. In the State University of Minnesota, 3, 500 stu- dents : in the largest denominational institution in Minnesota, 150 collegiate students, and only 800 in the eight church schools of college rank. In the State University of IS'ebraska, 2,400 stu- dents : in the largest denominational institution in Nebraska, 150 collegiate students. The fig- ures for Kansas are 1, 200 and 200. In the State University of Michigan, 4, 000 ; and, in the largest denominational institution in Michigan, some 225 collegiate students, about 800 in the eight church schools. In the two great Universities in California, State and Leland Stanford, Jr., non-sectarian, there are over 5, 000 students : in the ten denominational institutions of higher 98 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN learning in California, some 800 students of col- lege rank. These facts do not discredit the work of denominational colleges, but they do show the present strong tendency in favor of State Universities. (3) It is obvious that the educational tendency to-day is overwhelmingly toward non-clerical and non-sectarian institutions. And in addition to the influence of State Universities, just men- tioned, it must be borne in mind that the spirit and attitude of Harvard University have been potent factors in bringing about the emancipa- tion of education in America from theological limitations and ecclesiastical bonds. For nearly a century that institution has stood against sec- tarianism in earnest advocacy of religious free- dom in education. Many small colleges, that were once decidedly denominational, such as Eutgers, Bowdoin, Ober- lin, Knox, Hamilton, and Beloit, now claim to be non-sectarian. The religious spirit has not been abandoned in these institutions, but secta- rian zeal has been outgrown, — a significant and hopeful condition. Many others, like Yale, Co- lumbia, Smith, and Western Reserve, that still AMERICAN EDUCATION 99 have very close relations with certain churclies, have become practically non-sectarian, but with- out becoming non- religious. This tendency is forcibly expressed in the fact that laymen are presidents of Yale and Princeton. Probably as remarkable and significant a fact as can be found in this connection is the movement toward the non-sectarian position of theological schools, — fully reached at Harvard, while Union Theological Seminary has become interdenomi- national. (4) What does all this really mean to the ministry? to the church? to religion? to the college? to the State? These are questions of profound importance. And it is an encouraging circumstance that hopeful answers can be truly made to them all. There may be here a loss of certain positions and privileges once enjoyed by the clergjmian. But these changes really represent gains to him and to the community. He may well rejoice that the area of educational interest and capacity has extended far beyond the clerical profession, and that his own hands are now left free for other and more pressing duties. And 'LcfC. 100 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN the community is better off in having others do this work as specialists, while the change enables the minister to do his work better as a specialist. The disappearance of the clergyman from edu- cational prominence does not mean disrespect for him or indifference to religion. It means simply a clearer recognition of the secular char- acter of the State and of the need of specializa- tion in both directions, while it also represents a wider interest in education. These transformations in the educational world are advantageous to religion and to the church. They help to strip piety of narrowness, while they relieve the church of many heavy burdens. Eeligion puts off its sectarian zeal, and becomes more human and more spiritual. The church, in withdrawing from the tasks of sectarian education, now has all its energies for the things of the spirit, that are its special and peculiar contribution to the enrichment and progress of mankind. The religious motive re- mains, but it operates in broader channels and flows in other directions. Men are not less re- ligious, but religion is less dogmatic. The college is not destitute of piety because AMERICAN EDUCATION 101 clergymen are at present seldom professors and courses in ^' Christian Evidences " have vanished from the curriculum. This non-sectarian edu- cation is profoundly religious in the best sense, when really efficient education, because it neces- sarily deals with the inherent spiritualities of life. And the very fact that the instructor has no clerical garb or sectarian intent, being simply a man among men, often makes the religious im- port of the facts handled more vital and impres- sive. The intellectual product of the class-room and laboratory solely devoted to biology is obvi- ously greater than where instruction in dogma is added and conformity to creed is demanded. And the religious fruitage will in the end un- doubtedly be superior. These changes have been advantageous to the State. It is good for the State to stand apart from all the theological disputes and sectarian controversies of its various classes. It is good for the State to be engaged actively in pouring out its treasures and exerting its energies for the development of all its citizens with no other object in view than efficient citizenship. It is good for the American State to demonstrate to 102 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM the world that the church can not only live, but prosper more abundantly, when left free from governmental patronage ; and that education becomes more effective when freed from church bonds and sectarian zeal, and enabled to devote itself to the simple but supreme task of per- fecting the humanity of man. EELIGION IN DENOMINATIONAL INSTITUTIONS RELIGION IN DENOMINATIONAL INSTITUTIONS There are in the United States upwards of five hundred institutions of higher education that bear the name college or University. After setting aside the Catholic and the State schools (approximately 70 and 80 respectively), 350 are left ; and of these about 300 have been and are still closely connected with some Protes- tant denomination. They were founded and have been supported to educate the ministers and promote the interests of some particular church. About 100 of these are very small schools, with less than 100 collegiate students (probably less than 4,000 such students in all of them) f and they hardly deserve to rank as colleges. The remaining 200 institutions fall into two divisions of about equal size. About 100 frankly report themselves as denominational, while about the same number call themselves 105 106 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN non-sectarian. These institutions with definite church relations are widely scattered geographi- cally, and they represent almost every form of Protestant faith. Among them may be men- tioned such colleges as Carleton (Congregational, Minnesota), Concordia (Lutheran, Wisconsin), Bates (Free Baptist, Maine), Hobart (Episcopal, New York), Allegheny (Methodist, Pennsyl- vania), Wake Forest (Baptist, North Carolina), Buchtel (Universalist, Ohio), Washington and Jefferson (Presbyterian, Pennsylvania), and such Universities as Eochester (Baptist, New York), Lawrence (Methodist, Wisconsin), St. Lawrence (Universalist, New York), De Pauw (Methodist, Indiana), Kentucky (Disciple), Lincoln (Pres- byterian, Pennsylvania), and Susquehanna (Lu- theran, Pennsylvania). In nearly all these in- stitutions compulsory attendance on daily chapel exercises (usually held in the morning and oc- cupying some fifteen minutes) is the rule. This is what might be expected, as they are the product of a definite denominational enthusiasm, and they exist to propagate a certain form of religious belief. In the main, the chapel exercises in these A3IERICAN EDUCATION 107 schools have undergone few changes in form and spirit. And yet more attractive music has been added in most of them, and responsive reading of the Psalms and repetition in concert of the Lord's Prayer have recently come into use in many. In only a few colleges of this class are there paid chaplains. Members of the faculty (usually there are several ordained ministers among the professors) conduct the religious services. In a large majority of these institu- tions church attendance on Sunday is required, either in the college chapel or at some neighbor- ing church. The Universalist colleges leave church attendance free, but maintain com- pulsory chapel services. A few of these institutions present interesting and exceptional features. Cumberland Univer- sity, Tennessee (Cumberland Presbyterian), bravely leaves attendance on both chapel and church perfectly free, but secures the presence of 90 per cent, of the students. At Drake University, Des Moines, la. (Disciple), — with 1,850 students in all departments, — attendance at daily chapel is voluntary, but expected ; and 85 per cent, of the students are usually present. 108 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN The changes recently made in the services at Drake are reported to be ^^in the direction of less severity and seriousness, but more joyous and educational.'^ In one Congregational col- lege (Iowa) voluntary attendance was substituted for compulsory some thirteen years ago j and two-thirds of the students are reported as being present. The president adds, ^^ There is be- lieved to be an improvement in all lines leading to normal religious living," — a hopeful state- ment in many ways. It is interesting to note that in two large institutions (Boston University and Syracuse University), with very definite re- ligious spirit and in close relation with the Methodist church, attendance at chapel is vol- untary, and yet a large number of students are regularly present. Probably the fact that these are comparatively new institutions accounts somewhat for the voluntary system. At Hardin College, Mexico, Mo. (200 stu- dents), a Baptist school, chapel exercises were suspended recently for a year as an experiment. But the students themselves were not satisfied. The services at present are evidently very human and practical, with a survey of current events AMERICAN EDUCATION 109 once a month. The spirit of Hardin College is evidently quite different from that of a Presby- terian college in Pennsylvania, whose president writes : ^ ^ All students attend chapel. We do not require it ; but it is distinctly understood that a student who does not care to attend is not wanted here, l^o objection has ever been made ' ' ! The reason is obvious. In these denominational colleges more or less religious instruction is given as a rule. Courses in Bible study are provided. But various broadening tendencies have been at work even here. Some institutions have either wholly abandoned or materially curtailed these studies. What were once compulsory have in others be- come elective ; while the spirit that pervades this department, where it still remains, is much more catholic and progressive than in former years. There is another point in this connection of decided interest. It is the fact that in some of the more sectarian schools of this class the chapel exercise has been more or less secularized. The daily meeting is more and more utilized, as one University president puts it, ^^as an opportu- 110 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN nity for general college business of interest to students " ! It has lost much of its formal sanc- timonious and theological character, and it has become a place for college announcements and general remarks, — less a religious exercise and more an educational gathering. This tendency is almost everywhere at work to-day. In many cases, discussion of current topics is a common feature of the chapel exercise, even in these de- nominational institutions. It may be questioned whether this change is helpful to religious cult- ure, but it is certainly a significant change. The other group of one hundred colleges and Universities (as a rule larger and older than those that we have just been considering and generally as denominational as these in their origin and early history) report themselves as non-sectarian. But this term is quite inade- quate in this connection. It is neither felicitous nor descriptive. Many of these institutions still have a decided theological bias. They are not neutral on the subject of dogma, nor are they hospitable to all form of religious belief. The atmosphere in many of them is positively un- friendly to Jews, Catholics, Agnostics, Univer- A31ERIGAN EDUCATION m salists, and Uuitarians. The term as used simply means that these schools stand for the central Orthodox views of religion, — non-sectarian only in the sense that the Y. M. O. A. is non-sectarian. They are interdenominational ; that is, Baptists, Methodists, Congregationalists, and others in general agreement with these religious bodies are all treated hospitably, and only the funda- mentals of Orthodoxy are emphasized. Some better term is needed in this connection, though it is difficult to supply one that just fits the case : the word ^^ secular" does not describe them, much less does ^^non-religious." Of these one hundred so-called non-sectarian institutions, about one-half have not only a very definite religious spirit, but a very decided theo- logical atmosphere. Princeton is strongly Pres- byterian : so is Union, — probably as much so as Lake Forest that frankly ranks itself Presby- terian. Oberlin calls itself non-sectarian, and yet it is as fully pervaded with the denomina- tional spirit as Trinity. Brown, though claiming to be non-sectarian, is probably as much of a Baptist institution as Colgate or Eochester. Bryn Mawr is as definitely devoted to the in- 112 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN terests of the Friends, though it calls itself nou- sectarian, as Syracuse University is devoted to the cause of the Methodist church, which it openly claims to be. Bowdoin is definitely, though not narrowly, Congregational : so are Amherst, Beloit, Mount Holyoke, and Knox. They no more deserve this term than Hobart, Bates, Allegheny, and Olivet, which frankly keep certain denominational names. Cumber- land University, an institution founded by the Cumberland Presbyterians, is administered with more breadth of spirit than many of these schools, attendance on chajiel and church being voluntary, as has just been stated, and it is more deserving of the title non -sectarian in some re- spects than the group of colleges named above \ and yet it does not assume to take it. That these institutions call themselves non- sectarian is, however, a significant accommoda- tion to the spirit of the times j and the truth is that they have made commendable progress toward freedom in religion. But the fact must be borne in mind that they are not theologically neutral, but committed to a definite doctrinal position. This is not stated by way of criticism, AMERICAN EDUCATION 113 but only for the purpose of accurate description. Some people tliink that they are non-sectarian when they allow their neighbors liberty respect- ing the mere details of belief; but a school is made really non-sectarian, not by its attitude to the incidental features of theology, but by its in- clusive policy and appreciative spirit in refer- ence to the fundamentals of religion. In these fifty so-called non-sectarian institu- tions with decided theological character, to which reference has just been made, attendance on daily chapel exercises is, as a rule, compul- sory. In most of them attendance at church on Sunday is required, either in college chapel or neighboring church. Some, like Amherst and Williams, have college churches separate from the village church of the same denomination. Students, however, are generally allowed to fol- low the wishes of their parents. In Eockford College, Illinois, for women, compulsory church attendance is imposed by the students them- selves. Certainly, institutions with such rigid rules and such definite ideals strongly enforced are hardly entitled to the name ^'non-sectarian." In about 25 colleges and Universities like La 114 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN Fayette College, Alabama, Washington Uni- versity (broadly non- sectarian from tlie begin- ning), St. Louis, Boston University, Bryn Mawr, Smith, and Barnard, chapel exercises are held daily ; but attendance is voluntary, from 20 per cent to 80 per cent, of the students being present. ^ these and kindred institutions forced attendanc at church on Sunday is the exception. Some ^^ our Universities (not State institu- tions), a N- among our oldest institutions, once definitely denominational, like Harvard and Yale, but the larger number more recently es- tablished, like Cornell, Leland Stanford, Jr., Johns Hopkins, Clark, and Tulane (these never even denominational), occupy a truly non-sec- tarian position, what may better be called a position of religious neutrality, — hospitable to religion, but free from theological bias. In these institutions a chapel exercise is maintained (daily in a majority) ; and in some of these other regular religious services are held, but, as a rule, attendance is voluntary. The spirit is very broad and inclusive. There is more than toleration : there is large liberty and wide appreciation. What is done in the direction AMERICAN EDUCATION 115 of religious cultui-e by these institutions, with the exception of Yale, will be described in a separate chapter. Yale University presents a very interesting example of religious evolution. It was created by a deep religious impulse. It has f r many years been the home of a very def.. fce theo- logical spirit and ideal. During the L^'^ieteenth century the conservatives of New Er'^%nd re- garded it and rejoiced in it as the d\: nder of their faith. Its present situation shows how the policy of an institution may be broadened, while at the same time its religious life may be enriched and deepened. Yale still maintains compulsory daily chapel for the students of the college proper. Those in other departments are not obliged to attend, but the college chapel is open to them ; and many are present at the Sunday morning preaching service, but not at the daily prayers. In the college proper students must attend the college church on Sunday morning or some other neigh- boring church approved by their parents. Here the compulsory policy is maintained, but it is administered with so much breadth and inclu- 116 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN siveness that better results than usual are se- cured. The following statement, from the secretary of the University, Eev. Anson Phelps Stokes, Jr., a man deeply interested in religion and thoroughly committed to freedom and catholic- ity, is of importance : — ''There is an acting pastor of the College Church, whose main duty is to preside at the Communion Service, held on the first Sunday of each month. He also keeps regular consul- tation hours, when students may talk with him personally. The conduct of the morning prayers is, however, left to eight ofiScers of the Uni- versity, chosen by the President. They are most of them laymen in close touch with the student body. ''I cannot describe in detail the changes which have taken place in the last twenty -five years. There has, however, been a most marked improvement in the last five years. This has been due to several causes. In the first place, the men who conduct prayers are men with sufficiently good voices to be heard all through the building. Then, too, there is a regular AMERICAN EDUCATION 117 form of service which has the marks both of simplicity and dignity. It has been found that set forms of prayer, taken either from the Book of Common Prayer or other collections, are pre- ferred by the students in the long run. '^I should perhaps add here that one of the most vital forces for good in the University is the preaching service on Sunday. Twenty or thirty years ago it was the custom to draw almost entirely from members of the College Faculty and the College Pastor for this preach- ing service. Now we get the strongest men from all denominations, Congregationalists, Epis- copalians, Unitarians, and others. I think it can be said with truth that the majority of students enjoy the service and get great help from it. I know of nothing more stimulating anywhere than the Sunday service at Yale, as it is at present conducted. The President of the University, a layman, always presides, as he does also at morning prayers ; and the service is conducted by the visiting preacher. We make a special point of having the sermon brief, the regular time being from twenty to twenty- five minutes. It is found that the simpler the 118 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN sermon and the more direct the appeal, the more helpful. The morning preacher also keeps con- sultation hours Sunday afternoon. This gives an opportunity to men who are in difficulty or doubt to have a good straight talk with a man of broad experience. There has been the most marked improvement in the past five or six years in the demeanor of men at all exercises in the chapel; and there are few men on the Faculty at Yale who do not believe that the ser- vices as at present conducted are a powerful moral and religious force in the community. '^ The great colleges for women in our country are Christian in origin and spirit, — Mount Hol- yoke, Wellesley, Smith, Yassar, and Bryn Mawr. But what there was of sectarian spirit in the earliest founded has largely been eliminated. A competent authority (Mary Breese Fuller) has interestingly described their present religious conditions : — ^^If there is any small difference in the out- ward manifestation of the religious life between the colleges for men and those for women, the latter institutions show it more spontaneously, with more individuality. Two facts illustrate AMERICAN EDUCATION 119 this point. Attendance at church and chapel exercises is in most cases required of college men. The majority of college women are not required to attend the same exercises. Consequently, full benches in Bryn Mawr or Wellesley represent voluntary expression of this side of college spirit. Again, the majority of men's colleges have an identical basis for their Christian work. The principal student religious organizations in each college are affiliated with the intercolle- giate Y. M. C. A. and the World's Student Fed- eration. But of the largest women's colleges each has a different basis for its religious associa- tion, only one of which is afifi.liated with the general federation. Which of the two situations is most desirable is a matter for discussion else- where. '^The official religious life is much the same in colleges of all kinds the world over. In- variably there is a morning chapel service. A service on Sunday afternoon or a week-day evening is held in addition, addressed by mem- bers of the faculty or speakers from a distance. Yassar and Wellesley have their Sunday morn- ing service at home, with a variety of distin- 120 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN guislied preacliers ; but Mount Holyoke, Bryn Mawr, and Smith, where ^ gown and town ' are close together, share in the ordinary local church services. The loyalty to the official services varies according to the leader and the conven- ience of the chapel site. The college which has known but one president is naturally most re- sponsive to its services. On the other hand, the college authorities are, as a rule, in sympathy with the religious work of the students. They are consulted in regard to its development, are members of the organizations, and sometimes conduct Normal, Bible, or Mission Study classes. One president plans to make the subject of his vesper talks the same as those of the class prayer- meetings on Sunday evening." Indications of Progeess. 1. There has been in the past generation a marked movement among denominational col- leges and Universities away from the sectarian spirit toward an interdenominational position. It is a significant fact that a hundred of these institutions, some of the oldest and many of the largest, report themselves as non-sectarian. AMERICAN EDUCATION 121 They have not reached complete religious free- dom or theological neutrality, but they have made notable progress in this direction. More- over, in nearly all of those which keep some church name or affiliation there has been a commendable broadening of spirit and ideal, so that almost everywhere students of different faiths are not made uncomfortable, but are treated with consideration. The institutions more recently created by denominational en- thusiasm have, as a rule, been given a broader policy than was formerly allowed, — a hopeful indication of adjustment to the modern spirit. In the main, the institutions of this class have grown the most rapidly that have responded the most quickly and most loyally to the de- mand for religious liberty. 2. Compulsory chapel is still common in these colleges and Universities. In many, church at- tendance is required on Sunday. But, while the old system remains, it is generally administered in a new spirit. The chapel exercise has been transformed in recent years. It has almost everywhere been given a modemness of tone, sometimes even a secular character, — a freshness 122 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN and brightness making it more acceptable to young people. The custom of calling into ser- vice a number of speakers, representing differ- ent churches, has helped to broaden and vitalize this exercise that has so commonly been a dead and deadening formality. And experience shows that, where the broadest spirit has come into the administration of this side of college life, there the religious interest is keenest and most active among students. Those institutions that have moved farthest toward the voluntary sys- tem and those that have reached the greatest catholicity report the best religious conditions. This appeal to life proves that religion gains when bonds are broken and freedom is granted. 3. Considerations of religious belief probably still have great weight in the selection of profes- sors for a large majority of these institutions. But even here progress has been made. It is now very seldom that a college president goes abroad over the land, as was done a few years ago, to find a Baptist chemist or a Trinitarian geologist ! Instructors are not at present, as formerly, kept in bonds to creed and catechism. Freedom of academic instruction has recently A3IERICAN EDUCATION 123 made great gains in these schools. The govern- ing boards of many denominational colleges would not elect as president a man outside the fellowship with which the school is connected ,• and, other things being equal, they would, as a rule, favor for professional positions men and women of their own type of theology. But it is a fact that in the faculties of many of these colleges and Universities an increasing number of persons are found who hold different creeds j and it is becoming more and more rare for ec- clesiastics to enter the class-room of even de- nominational institutions with inquisitorial eye or with the ban of the church. NORMAL SCHOOLS AND AGRICULT- URAL COLLEGES NORMAL SCHOOLS AND AGRICULT- URAL COLLEGES We come now to the consideration of the re- ligious conditions of several groups of educa- tional institutions, quite different in aim and quality of work, but alike in this : they are all State institutions. They also differ widely in many ways from both denominational colleges on the one hand and from State Universities on the other hand. Let us first study the reli- gious situation as it is presented in our Normal Schools. There are over one hundred and fifty State and city Normal Schools in the United States with nearly 50,000 students. In over four-fifths of these attendance on chapel exercises every school day is compulsory. There are apparently no geographical differences in this particular. It is an interesting fact that, in most cases where State Universities have adopted the voluntary system or abandoned chapel services altogether, 127 128 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN the Normal Schools of the same States still main- tain the compulsory rule. There are obvious reasons for this difference, and prominent among them these : (1) The boards and faculties having charge of these schools are in general composed of a more con- servative class of persons than those who shape the policies of State Universities. They are per- sons in whom the old church spirit and ideal are still strong. (2) As the students are younger or less mature, there is a common feeling that they ought not to be left at such an age free from re- ligious culture and admonition. (3) Probably also because of the fact that the task of the teacher is still so intimately associated in the public mind with the interests of religion, it has been felt necessary to provide a religious atmosphere for the school that trains men and women for the high and holy duty of instructing children. Some of the reports from Normal Schools state that students are excused from chapel, if the request is made on the ground of conscien- tious scruples j and then it is added. Practically no such requests are made. Of course not. And the existence of such a rule does not guarantee AMERICAN EDUCATION 129 theological neutrality. Something more than this must be done to secure perfect religious freedom. Even if attendance were quite dis- tasteful and considered positively unjust by many students, it is obvious that few would ask to be excused, as this would make them subject to comment. Few students care to put them- selves in such a position. In about one-fourth of the reports from Kormal Schools, it is stated that attendance at some church once a Sunday (twice in a few cases) is re- quired. At the Bridgewater State IN'ormal School (Massachusetts) the students (261) are required to attend some church of their own selection. This seems an unreasonable demand to make of stu- dents in a State school. In one case (in Georgia) a church roll is called on Monday 5 and the remark is added, ^^The students respect this record wholesomely " ! A preaching service on Sunday does not seem to be held in any of these Normal Schools. But Bible classes and prayer- meetings (attendance voluntary) are held in the buildings of many of these schools on Sunday. In almost all, the Young Men's Christian Associa- tions and similar organizations freely use the 130 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN rooms of these institutions. Indeed, in the cata- logues of many Normal Schools the Y. M. 0. A. is given conspicuous attention, and its work is commended much as though an essential part of the school. There are about a score of State Normal Schools in which chapel attendance is voluntary, from 50 per cent, to 90 per cent, being given as the average proportion of students present. In half these cases, chapel is held only once in a week. The voluntary system has in most cases been recently substituted for the compulsory, and the results appear to be satisfactory. The situation at a few Normal Schools deserves special attention : The Chicago Normal School (500 students) has no chax^el exercise. The State Normal School at Oshkosh, Wis. (600 stu- dents) makes this report : '^ We have no chapel exercises proper ; but we take about twenty-five minutes each morning for ^opening exercises,' which consist of the singing of one or two hymns, the reading of some selection from a wide range of literature, but non-sectarian, and remarks upon some matter of current interest by the president or some member of the faculty. '^ Certainly, a AMERICAN EDUCATION 131 commeDdable change from what in many cases has been a formal and perfunctory service that can only by courtesy be called religious. In this connection it is well to remember that the Supreme Court of Wisconsin in 1890 declared the reading of the Bible in the Public Schools of the State as a part of a religious exercise to be contrary to the provisions of the State constitu- tion, — a memorable and ej)Och-making decision. At the Normal School of Arizona, Tempe, even a simpler service is held, — songs, announce- ments, talks by members of the faculty, but no religious exercise. The report from the State Normal University, Normal, 111., states that, in addition to selections from the Bible, ' ^ we have had readings from Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, the Koran, Emerson, Bishoi^ Spalding, and others," — an unusual catholicity ! From these and similar facts it is easy to detect the operation in our Normal Schools of three tendencies that are apparently increasing in vigor : (1) In the last few years quite a num- ber of these schools have abandoned the old- fashioned compulsory chapel exercise. (2) In a larger number the voluntary system has taken 132 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN the place of the compulsory. (3) Where com- pulsory chapel remains, the service has, as a rule, been largely improved, being freed from dogmatic features and given a more modern and social character. These changes indicate a commendable movement toward theological neutrality, although religious freedom can hardly be said to have been reached. Where the most progress in this direction has been made, relig- ious earnestness has not lessened, but increased. The religious situation in our Agricultural Colleges is similar to that in the Normal Schools, and probably for the same reasons in the main. In some of the States where instruction in agri- culture is a part of the educational system of the commonwealth, there is no separate school, but the work is a department in the State Univer- sity, as in Wisconsin ; and in these cases the regulations respecting chapel will be discussed in connection with the State Universities. Nearly all the Agricultural Colleges proper have chapel exercises of the usual character from Monday to Friday with compulsory at- tendance. No material changes in the manage- AMERICAN EDUCATION 133 ment of these religious exercises have been made since these colleges were opened. Only in Mas- sachusetts, according to the reports made, is there a paid chaplain ; but the chaplain of this school, in addition to his religious duties, also acts as a professor and gives instruction in vari- ous secular branches during the week. In nearly all of these colleges, attendance on '^divine service ^^ is required on Sunday, either at the service held in the institution or at some local church, the preference of parents being honored in this respect. As a rule, the Young Men^s Christian Associations occupy rooms in the college buildings ; and they apparently have the hearty support of the faculty in general. In a few cases there are in addition Epworth Leagues and Societies of Christian Endeavor with equal privileges. The two notable exceptions to compulsory at- tendance at chapel are the Michigan State Agri- cultural College at Lansing and the Iowa State College of Agriculture at Ames. In these insti- tutions attendance is voluntary, in the former from 50 to 70 per cent, of the students being present, and in the latter from 15 to 40 per cent. 134 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN being present. In both cases, however, there is preaching every Sunday morning in the col- lege with apparently compulsory attendance, — in the former by some minister from Lansing who is paid five dollars a Sunday for his services. As we reflect upon these facts the question arises whether the absence of changes in religious policy among these institutions is due to the conservative character of the agricultural class chiefly interested in them. There is another group of State institutions — Reform and Industrial Schools — that may well be briefly considered in this connection. Com- pulsory attendance on religious services is the general rule in these schools, as in all our penal and reformatory institutions. But there are marked differences in the frequency and charac- ter of such services. The report from the State Industrial School for Girls at Lancaster, Mass., contains a notable statement, showing an un- usual condition which is worthy special atten- tion : ^^The character of this school as a State institution is such that these topics [of religion] cannot be satisfactorily treated." AMERICAN EDUCATION 135 But the schools of this class, with few excep- tions, have services on Sunday, with sermon or address at which attendance is required, the Minnesota State Eeformatory (for boys) at St. Cloud being the notable exception j and the system recently adopted there will be briefly described. In one case (State Industrial School, Kearney, Neb.), the report states that the stu- dents are required to attend the churches in the neighboring city on Sunday, — Protestants every week, and Catholics once a month. In addition, Sunday-school classes and prayer- meetings are held on Sunday in nearly all these schools, at which, however, as a rule, the attend- ance is voluntary. During the week in many institutions (probably over one-half) there are daily prayers or Bible-readings, usually in the different cottages. In some cases these are held both morning and evening, and attendance is in general compulsory. There are paid chaplains in about half of these schools. In some instances the ministers of local churches serve as chaplain in rotation. Eeligious organizations like the Y. M. C. A., Christian Endeavor, and Ep worth League, are infrequent. Gospel hymns are ap- 136 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN parently more commonly used liere than in any other educational institutions. A few years ago a new system was adopted at the Minnesota State Eeformatory at St. Cloud, which has about 200 students. There are no chapel exercises on week-days, but inmates, on request, may receive religious instruction as desired from the ministers of the local churches in St. Cloud ; and for this purpose they are grouped into various classes. Attendance is voluntary, and the instruction is given without compensation. Two religious services are held in the institution on Sunday, at which attend- ance is voluntary : a Protestant service, at which about 70 per cent, of the Protestants are present ; and a Catholic service, at which about 50 per cent, of the Catholics are present. This system represents in many ways an ideal solution of a difficult problem. Two defects may, however, be found in it by critics : (1) the loss of comradeship and social culture that come from a daily meeting together ; and (2) the insistence that persons as young as these students should not be left to a voluntary system, for they are not capable of acting wisely for themselves in these matters. AMERICAN EDUCATION 137 But, evidently, the originator of this plan has clear and decided convictions ; for he forcibly writes, The attendance on these Sunday services is ^^ absolutely voluntary, and it must and shall remain so." This is certainly a significant ex- periment, which will be watched by all with interest, and by many in the hope that it will show good results and that its general principle will be adopted widely in other schools. The situation in these and kindred institutions forces upon us the important question, How far is it right for the State to go in attempting to force religious instruction and religious services upon its delinquent children and criminal citi- zens ? Here is a serious problem which deserves more attention than it has so far received. In the technical schools, whether State insti- tutions or private foundations, there is, as a rule, no attempt at chapel exercise on week-days or religious service on Sunday. This is true of such schools as the Michigan College of Mines, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Case School of Applied Sciences, the Stevens In- stitute of Technology, and others. 138 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 Even at the Armour Institute of Technology, founded by a philanthropic churchman and pre- sided over by a clergyman, there are no at- tempts whatever to provide religious instruction by chapel on week-days or church on Sunday. It has no regulations whatever respecting relig- ious matters, wisely committing these important interests to home and church. And if it be said, in view of these and other similar facts, that something ought to be done along religious lines by all schools for children who come out of homes destitute of spiritual nurture, the adequate reply to this plea for re- ligious instruction in every school is the mere statement that this is work for the church rather than the school, and it is better for all interests to hold the church to its grave responsibility in this particular direction. If the home does fail at this point, it is the church, and not the school, that ought to supply what the family has neg- lected to give. THE STATE UNIVEKSITIES THE STATE UNIVERSITIES The influence of our State Universities in pro- moting religious freedom throughout the field of higher education in America has been, for the past fifty years, especially powerful. Probably it has been the most powerful influence, apart from the general spirit of the age, at work among us in this direction. Here the problem was stripped of all traditional associations and ecclesiastical embarrassments. These were new institutions, with no inherited bonds, created and maintained by the State for the people in general. Those who administered them were compelled to rise above sect and denomination, and work in an inclusive spirit. Here the ^'American Idea" has found its clearest and strongest expression. In the early days of the oldest of these Univer- sities, clerical influences often played a conspic- uous part, and the religion problem frequently reached an acute stage of irritation. The steps 141 142 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN of progress were often slow, and sometimes quite uncertain ; but experience finally brought per- manent results in favor of approximate or abso- lute religious neutrality. The victory for relig- ious liberty has been substantially won, although in some cases there is a lingering survival of an- cient customs. The secular character of the American State finds complete expression in nearly all of our great State Universities, where education proceeds without clerical dictation or sectarian intent. The University of Michigan was the first of the State institutions to reach prominence. It was founded in 1837, its first class was graduated in 1845, and the number of students had reached 500 by 1855. Its influence and example have been large and commanding, not only through- out the West, but also in all parts of our coun- try. It is therefore extremely interesting and instructive to trace its progress toward religious freedom. In its early years the few dominant denominations in the State of Michigan felt that they had a right to proportional representation in the faculty. Every one demanded ^ ^ a sphere of influence" ! These churches insisted that, AMERICAN EDUCATION 143 when a professor was appointed, a certain man should be selected because he represented a par- ticular church. This policy, pernicious in itself and contrary to the spirit of American civiliza- tion, found many advocates among the promi- nent men of the State in the early days. If it had been established as a permanent policy at Ann Arbor, the University would have been crippled or destroyed, and the interests of edu- cation and religion in our whole nation would have been greatly injured. It was fortunate that the University had for its chancellor (as the president was then called) at that critical time a man of broad spirit and clear vision, deeply imbued with true American- ism, who, while a loyal churchman with deep religious convictions, saw what was the path of wisdom for State, church, and school. Henry P. Tappan was an educator with the prescient mind of a statesman. His words reveal a perfect mas- tery of the great problem, and they are weU worthy our careful consideration. In a notable address on '^The University : Its Constitution and its Eelations, Political and Ee- ligious," delivered at Ann Arbor in 1858, Dr. 144 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN Tappan referred to the tlien popular demand that religious considerations be taken into ac- count in the selection of members of the faculty j and he clearly stated his general position in these words : ' ^ In the aj)pointment of professors, ref- erence should be had only to scientific and liter- ary qualifications, and aptitude to teach. It is indispensable to a teacher in any branch of sci- ence or literature that he should be master of the branch which he professes to teach. However amiable his character, however pure his relig- ious or political creed according to the judgment of any sect or party, if he has not the requisite literary or scientific qualifications, he is of no account. It is on this common-sense principle that we select a physician, a lawyer, a mechanic, a laborer of any description ; and it would be the height of infatuation to reject it in the ap- pointment of professors. l!^or would the institu- tion in question avoid the error by adopting the principle of selecting the best man of one's own sect or party j for it might often happen that the best man of the sect or party would not be the best man for the vacant chair, and some man of extraordinary ability, and whose acces- AMERICAN- ED UCA TION 145 sion would bring incalculable strength and repu- tation to the institution, would be set aside. There is no safe principle but that of looking directly at the qualifications of the individual, relatively to the chair to be filled." Here we have the fundamental principle of Civil Service Eeform applied to the appoint- ment of University professors : a person shall be appointed to a position solely on account of his ability to fill it efficiently, — considerations of sect or party shall have no weight whatever. "We have in recent years become familiar with this doctrine, but it was not so well known or generally respected in our country a half- century ago ; and its advocacy and application as a Uni- versity policy by Dr. Tappan needs to be re- membered with gratitude as a memorable inci- dent in the history of American education. The following paragraph is also intensely interesting : — ^^ Every sect has the right of establishing its own institutions j but no such institution can arise to eminence, or gain large success, by mak- ing the promotion of sectarian interest its great aim. Let any one carefully examine the institu- 146 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN tions of our country, and he will find the above assertion fully sustained. Hence we find the sectarian institutions, so called, tending more and more to a liberal policy. The genius of our country demands that, if sectarian in name, they should not be so in their educational organi- zation and procedures." Significant and pro- phetic words ! Chancellor Tappan then proceeds to apply this principle to the case in hand, — the Univer- sity of Michigan: ^^If the principle we have above laid down, that the appointment of pro- fessors to chairs of literature and science, to all chairs, at least, outside the theological, is to be independent alike of political and religious tests, and solely in reference to literary and scientific qualifications, and aptitude to teach, and that, too, in institutions professedly at- tached to particular religious denominations, . . . then I say, when we come to this institution, the principle of regulating appointments by qualifi- cations alone, cannot fail us. Here, if anywhere, political and religious tests must be utterly abol- ished, nor even a shadow of them appear." But it is evident that men with other ideals AMERICAN ED UCA TION 147 existed at that time in the State of Michigan, For Dr. Tappan goes on to state : ^ ' A plan has somehow sprung up, and in one or two instances been acted upon, which, on the one hand, by proclaiming the equal rights of all religious de- nominations in University appointments, seems to avoid exclusiveness j while, on the other hand, in the very attempt to adjust these rights, it involves us in all the evils of denominational tests. For on this plan, whenever a chair is to be filled, instead of confining ourselves to the consideration of the literary and scientific quali- fications of the candidates, and their aptitude to teach, we must raise two additional inquiries : First, to which of the denominations does the appointment about to be made, of right, be- long 1 And, secondly, which of the candidates possesses the requisite denominational qualifica- tions r^ These words describe what was the storm cen- tre of angry debate in the young commonwealth of Michigan. The policy having been de- scribed, its pernicious character is then set forth : ^^Now it is plain that in both these questions we depart from the true principle before vindi- 148 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN cated^ and that, this plan once adopted, every appointment afterwards made to the University would be governed by some denominational test. But this would not be the only evil we should have to encounter. There would be the evil of denominational jealousy and competition. How would it be possible to adjust these denomina- tional rights? Which denomination shall have the largest number of professors % Shall it be de- termined by the numbers, the wealth, the politi- cal influence, or the educated intelligence of the sect ? Or shall the same number be distributed alike to all the sects ? But some professorships may be regarded as more influential than others j and the full professorship would gener- ally be regarded as taking precedence of the as- sistant. Then how many assistant professorships shall be considered equivalent to one full profes- sorship? Shall it be two or one and a half? How shall we determine the relative importance of the full professorships? Which sect shall have the right to nominate the president ?'' Here the absurdity of the policy urged by secta- rian zealots is laid bare, not only by forcible ar- gument, but by keen ridicule. AMERICAN EDUCATION 149 In the same noble and convincing strain, Dr. Tappan proceeds : ^* Wlien these representatives of the different sects are introduced into the University, acknowledged and known in this capacity, then the question arises: How are they to act out their representative capacity, and to maintain the interests of the bodies which they represent ? Shall they all remit the peculiarities of their respective sects, and endeavor to stand upon certain principles in which they all agree ? Then there will, in reality, be no representation of sects ; and the ends of the whole arrangement become null and void. Shall each one assert his sectarian peculiarities % Then will the Univer- sity be split into conflicting parties, and the professors be found heading their respective clans, and, instead of an institution providing the inhabitants of the State with the means of acquir- ing a thorough knowledge of the various branches of literature, science, and the arts, we shall have a grand gymnasium where Catholic and Protestant, the orthodox and the heterodox, engaged in end- less logomachies, shall renew Milton's chaos: ' A universal hubbub wild Of stunning sounds and voices all confused ' I 150 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN Better, far better than to run the hazard of such confusion and ruin, would it be to consign the University to any one denomination, Catho- lic or Protestant, animated by the noble spirit of Padua, Pisa, or Leiden. One alone possess- ing it might be generous and enlightened : a number attempting to share its functions and divide its spoils would only rend it in pieces." Then follows a paragraph which deserves a very high place in the history of American edu- cation : ^ '• But egregiously do those mistake the character and ends of this institution who imag- ine that, because it belongs to no sect or party in particular, it therefore belongs to all sects and parties conjointly, and of equal right. It not only does not belong to any sect or party in par- ticular : it belongs to no sect or party at all. It belongs to the people of this State simply as the people of the State. The deed of trust by which it was founded, the ordinance by which its objects are defined, makes no allusion to Catholic or Prot- estant, to Presbyterian, Methodist, Episcopalian, Baptist, Congregationalist, Unitarian, Univer- salist, or any other religious denomination. It speaks not of political parties ; it refers to no par- AMERICAN EDUCATION 151 ticular localities. It speaks only of the State of Michigan, or of the people of the State. It is a purely literary and scientific institution : it is in no sense ecclesiastical. It is designed for a simple purpose, — advancing knowledge and promoting education. Occupying a higher grade, it is as purely a poi)ular and educational institution as the common school itself. It is as absurd to speak of the University as belonging to religious sects conjointly as it would be to speak of the asylum, the State prison, the legislature, or any other public body, institution, or works, as thus belonging. The State is not composed of sects, but of the people. And the institutions of the State do not belong to the sects into which the people may chance to be divided by their relig- ious opinions and x>ractices, but to the people considered as the body politic, irrespective of all such divisions." This discussion has been quoted at length because of its intrinsic worth and its relative importance. Chancellor Tappan fully appreci- ated the secular character of our American Nation. He saw with perfect clearness that a State school must follow the character of the 152 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN State which creates and maintains it. As, there- fore, the State in its purely civic functions stands wholly apart from religious beliefs and rites, so also must its schools be neutral toward all churches. Having no religion of its own as a State (though its people may have a hundred different forms of religion), it cannot put any religion, however simple, meagre, or universal, into its schools, whether common school or col- lege. The State University must not attempt to teach any theological dogmas or favor any par- ticular denomination. It was equally clear to Dr. Tappan that the churches as such must have no voice whatever in the management of its affairs or the selection of its faculty. And he insisted upon these principles, not only as a citizen loyal to the American theory of government, but also as an enlightened friend of all the churches and of religion in general. Coming as they did, in the formative period of our ^yestern civilization, just as State Universities began to be organized, coming also from a distinguished educator, who was then occupying a post of great distinction as head of the largest State University in the land, AMERICAN EDUCATION 153 these words carried great weight and exerted a wide and decisive influence. These principles, set forth with so much power by Dr. Tappan, have been incorporated into the life and organi- zation of all the State Universities that have been established in the last fifty years. It remains to trace the changes made in chapel exercises in these institutions and to describe the conditions in this respect which exist at present. There are about forty State (and Territorial) Universities in our Nation. A few of these, like that of Maine, are really no more than agri- cultural colleges ; and in these a daily chapel is held at which atttendance is expected. In a few cases, like the University of Vermont, the agricultural college of the State was grafted upon a previously existing denominational insti- tution ; and, quite naturally, the regulation re- specting chapel which existed in the older college remains, and the compulsory policy is still in force. A half dozen State Universities in the South, like those in North Carolina and South Carolina, in Georgia, and in Alabama, were established near the beginning of the nine- teenth century, at a time when all such institu- 154 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN tions were under strict religious influences ; and in these the compulsory chapel is still main- tained. The chapel services in all these institutions are at present very much the same in character as in former years, though some changes have been made. More music has recently been added : none whatever is allowed in the State college of Kentucky ! Some little effort has been put forth to make these exercises less theo- logical and more practical than they formerly were. In the University of South Carolina and in the University of Alabama, students are required to attend church once a Sunday ! These facts remind us that there are still a few sections of our land where the secular character of our government is not fully understood ; and, unfortunately, the principle of religious neutral- ity in education has not everywhere been ac- cepted. But these few and scattered survivals of ancient customs only emphasize the progress which the rest of the country has happily made. In one-half of our State Universities where a chapel service is held, the attendance is volun- AMERICAN EDUCATION 155 tary. In some cases the service departs very far from the conventional form, being more a secular assembly of students and faculty than a religious exercise. Chapel is held every school day, with voluntary attendance, in about a dozen of these institutions, usually conducted by members of the faculty, in a few instances by pastors of local churches, and in one case by the secretary of the Y. M. 0. A., — the University of Virginia ! In five — the Universities of Ore- gon, Ohio State, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming — there is a weekly gathering of all members of the institution. This meeting as a rule is more a social and educational convocation than a de- votional service, though prayer and Scripture reading are common features. In the University of Colorado, chapel is held Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. In the University of Indiana one hour is set apart — 10 A.M. to 11 A.M. — on Tuesday and Thursday each week for a religious service, with an address by one of the local ministers or some clergyman from a distance. The University of Michigan holds a vesper service at four o' clock on Tues- day and Thursday — during a part of the year. 156 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN This service is chiefly musical, with short prayer and Scripture reading, usually by the president. This is in no sense a chapel service after the old type. In these institutions the attendance of students varies from 20 per cent, to 90 per cent. In all but those recently organized, the compul- sory chapel formerly existed. There are six State Universities — Nevada, California, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa (voluntary chapel may later be resumed, when suitable room is provided), Arizona (still a Territory) — where no chapel exercise is held. In some of these, notably in Arizona and Wisconsin, there is a general meeting of students. In Arizona an as- sembly is held Friday morning, but without de- votional exercises, — ^^ prohibited by organic act from introducing any exercises of a religious nature." Wisconsin now has a weekly assem- bly, or convocation, at which members of the Freshman and Sophomore Classes are required to attend, and which is open to the members of the other classes. At these meetings the presi- dent addresses the students on some matter of interest, or distinguished men from outside the institution speak to the students upon various AMERICAN EDUCATION 157 topics, often questions of contemporary history or politics. Members of the faculty, other than the president, frequently speak on these occa- sions. Music is made a prominent feature. It is interesting to note the comparisons in size and rate of growth between the institutions which have kept closest to the traditional policy and those that have practically reached religious neutrality. In the ten State institutions where the compulsory policy is still maintained, there are at present less than 4,000 students, — only about as many as in some one of the great Universities that have come completely into harmony with the modern spirit. The rate of growth in the last ten years has been much more rapid in the State institutions with freer and more modern spirit. The following is also an impressive statement : One-half of the college students of our country are in the twenty-five institutions that have vol- untary chapel or no similar exercise, — fifteen State Universities and the ten institutions like Washington, Ck)rnell, Stanford, Harvard, Co- lumbia, Boston, Smith, Bryn Mawr, Syracuse, and Johns Hopkins. The other half are scat- 158 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN tered in some 400 institutions ! The number of students in these twenty-five Universities has in- creased during the past ten years 125 per cent. The following ten denominational institutions of the best type — Eochester, \Yake Forest, Cornell College, Colby, Hamilton, Lawrence, Princeton, Drake, Wittenberg, De Pauw — have increased in number of students in the same period only about 40 per cent., — a growth only about one- third as fast as in the former class ! It would be exceedingly absurd to contend that the pol- icy of voluntary chai)el has been a prominent, or even a considerable, factor in this more rapid growth. But this comparison does show very plainly what type of institution appeals most powerfully at present to the American people. In these State institutions that have existed for twenty years or more, several tendencies are to be noticed. (1) Daily chapel exercises with compulsory attendance were formerly general, if not almost universal. The voluntary system has rapidly gained ground in recent years. Of the 35,000 students in all these State Universities, less than 4,000, as has been stated, are now under compulsory chapel rules ; over 20,000 are in in- AMERICAN EDUCATION 159 stitutions with the voluntary system ; and over 9, 000 in those with no chapel service. (2) In many cases the transitions have been similar to those in Wisconsin and Michigan. Many years ago in both there was compulsory chapel ; then chapel was made voluntary with expectation of attendance 5 and, finally purely voluntary and occasional, as in Michigan, or wholly abolished, as in Wisconsin. (3) Where attendance on chapel is now re- quired, the services have been made more practical, more varied, and more educational ; less dogmatic and less perfunctory. (4) The testimonies of competent observers indicate that these changes, instead of injuring religion and lowering the moral tone of the students, have been coincident with a deepening of the religious life of the student body. One University president, located in the South, writes significantly, ^'Compulsory chapel at- tendance was here productive of much sin^' ! Probably many others could give decisive evi- dence in the same line. SOME INTERESTING EXPERIMENTS SOME INTERESTING EXPERIMENTS In a great majority of our American institutions of higher education the religious problem is be- ing treated with greater wisdom and more cath- olicity than ever before. Almost everywhere the atmosphere has become less dogmatic and more tolerant. The policy of compulsion is giving way to the voluntary method. Chapel exercises are becoming less formal and more spiritual; less theological and more ethical. The great institutions are calling to their aid the eminent men of nearly all denominations. Extreme positions on both sides are being abandoned : the conservatives have a keener appreciation of the necessity of theological neu- trality in State schools, and the radicals see more clearly than ever before the importance of relig- ion and admit that the opportunity for relig- ious culture, of broad and inclusive type, ought to be provided in college and University. The conviction deepens that compulsion is not wise. 163 164 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN On the other hand, many feel that it is not best to abandon the field completely. Public opin- ion centres more and more on methods that in- sure theological freedom, but provide religious opportunity. Cornell University has been a pioneer in this realm. By the terms of the charter of the Uni- versity, persons of any religious denomination or of no religious denomination are equally eligible to all offices and appointments j but it is expressly ordered that '' at no time shall a majority of the Board of Trustees be of any one religious sect or of no religious secf From 1868 to 1871 daily chapel exercises were held, but very broad in spirit ; and all students were expected to attend. In 1873, Sage Chapel (recently enlarged and beautified) was given to the University, and the Sage Preachership En- dowment was established. For thirty years re- ligious services have been held in the Chapel on Sunday, conducted by eminent clergymen, se- lected, in the spirit of the charter, from the various religious denominations. These minis- ters serve but one Sunday in the year, and they have no pastoral or other relations with the stu- AMERICAN EDUCATION 165 dents : their duty is limited to the pulpit work of this particular Sunday. Of course, some of these clergymen return to give sermons for a number of years in succession. The Sage Chapel preaching service on Sunday is very popular, and it is generally attended by a large number of professors and students. The Chapel is also open every week-day from 5 p.m. to 5.45 P.M., when religious music is rendered, with special programmes on Thursdays. At- tendance on all these services is absolutely vol- untary. All observers testify that the moral and religious tone of the student body is high, and there has been progress rather than de- cline under this system for the period of thirty years during which it has existed. The University of North Carolina has a system of University preachers somewhat similar to that at Cornell. It was developed from a very old custom of having ministers invited by the Y. M. C. A. once a month to deliver sermons to the students. Gradually, the choice of these preachers and the payment of their expenses fell into the hands of the University proper, making them officers of the institution during 166 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN their term of service. This custom is now more than twenty years old. These clergymen are selected from a few denominations, and they have no pastoral relations with the students. The University of Virginia has a system with some unique features. The daily voluntary chapel is held at 6.15 p.m. It is conducted by the Secretary of the Y. M. C. A. The attend- ance is small, but those present are very ear- nest. There are on Sunday two preaching ser- vices, the character and support of which are thus described by a member of the faculty : '^We have no religion here, as an institution; but the vast majority of our faculty and the greater proportion of our students are Christian men. Each member of the faculty subscribes every year one per cent, of his salary volunta- rily to religious services, and the students give what they will when the paper is carried around to them by the secretary of the Y. M. C. A. We have invited preachers every Sunday, in- cluding such men as Lyman Abbott, Dr. Faunce of Brown University, Dr. Strong of New York, and others of prominence from the North, and many leading divines from the South and West. AiMERICAN EDUCATION 167 Here we stop after asking the ministers of the city to look after the members of their respec- tive denominations among our students. When the students apply for matriculation^ they put down their religious affiliation on the blank forms which they fill out at that time j and from these a full list is made out and sent to the local pastors, including Jews and Eoman Catholics. These latter we do not have in our chapel, as the standard Protestant organizations only are invited to officiate." Attendance on the Sunday preaching service at the University of Virginia is entirely volun- tary. It is interesting to note that the first college Y. M. C. A. was organized in this insti- tution founded by Thomas Jefferson ! It is con- fidently reported that for many years there has been a steady progress toward a deeper religious life. But the University has no regulations re- specting religious matters, except that golf can- not be played on the grounds of the institution during the Sabbath ! A century of experience proves that the utmost religious liberty de- manded by the founder, Thomas Jefferson, has after all been helpful to the interests of piety ! 168 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN The Leland Stanford Junior University is neither a State nor a denominational institution. It does not accept even the term ^^non-secta- rian." It was founded in the broadest spirit, and yet a religious impulse finds expression in its or- ganic law. The charter of the University pro- hibits sectarian instruction, but provides that there shall be taught in the University ^^the immortality of the soul, the existence of an all- wise and benevolent Creator, and that obedience to his laws is the highest duty of man." Two kinds of voluntary religious services are maintained by the University, — two church services on Sunday and a Thursday afternoon vesper service. During the first four years after the University was opened there was a daily voluntary chapel at 8.15 a.m. The University Chapel Union, organized by the University com- munity in 1896, co-operates with the Faculty Committee on Chapel Services in the endeavor to make the religious services of the University an expression of the life of the community, and invested, as far as possible, with the atmosphere of a church home. The preachers to the University for the past AMERICAN EDUCATION 169 few years represent the most inclusive list to be found anywhere among our American Universi- ties, not only Christians, but Jews j not only Protestants, but Catholics ; not only clergymen, but also distinguished laymen. The Memorial Church, with a total seating capacity of 1, 700, has recently been dedicated ; and Eev. Dr. E. Heber ^N^ewton has just entered upon his duties as preacher to the University, and the progress of his work will be watched with great interest in the generous hope that his ministrations will be spiritually helpful, and also that they will suggest better methods of religious culture for our great educational insti- tutions. A paid chaplain has also recently been installed, who is practically a college pastor. This arrangement brings two clergymen into close association with the students of the Uni- versity, but the voluntary principle is main- tained. Both these men have been members of the Protestant Episcopal priesthood, but they are at present released from ecclesiastical super- vision. What may well be called the '^Harvard Plan ' ' seems to many the most successful method 170 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN yet devised to afford religious opportunity, and at the same time to maintain theological neu- trality. The originator of this plan, Professor Francis G. Peabody, very justly describes in these words the philosophy which underlies the methods which have produced such good results at our oldest University. He writes : — ' ^ Two methods have hitherto presented them- selves as open to the Universities in dealing with religion. The one is the method of compulsion ; the other is the method of abolition. Compul- sion toward religion in the life of youth has bred repulsion from religion in the life of many a man. He has come to regard religion as an obligation rather than an opportunity ; as a system of police, which he may try to evade, rather than a spirit of life which he should be encouraged to seek. ^^Eeligion is not a thing which can be barred out of the world of study. . . . There is hardly a single department of study to which one can make the least concession without being brought into immediate relation with the interest of the spiritual life, and out of which does not neces- sarily come either confirmation of conviction or AMERICAN EDUCATION 171 increase of uncertainty. It is in vain that a University or an individual attempts to be neutral in such a matter. Eeligion is too large and too penetrating a thing to be shut out. Agnosticism toward it is not a neutral position either in a University or in an individual. It is a position of positive and direct influence. ^ He that is not with me is against me, and he that scattereth not with me scattereth abroad.' '' Dr. Peabody pleads with illuminating wisdom for both liberty and opportunity in religion, as it stands related to University administration : ^ ^ Thus the voluntary system in religion is a two- fold act of faith : it is a faith in the power of religion, and it is a faith in the impulses of young men. The other system of religion in the colleges seems to proceed not from faith, but from doubt. The system of abolition doubts the power of religion, and assumes that a University can get on without it. The system of compul- sion doubts the impulses of young men, and as- sumes that they cannot be trusted in their deeper leadings. The system of privilege assumes two things : that religion rationally presented can hold its place among the competing interests of 172 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN the time, and that the hearts of young men are naturally receptive and responsive to its call." It was in 1886 that Dr. Peabody, then Plum- mer Professor of Christian Ethics in Harvard, put these general ideas into practice in a system which has four parts (1) A daily chapel, a brief but impressive service, held at 8.45 A.M., at which attendance is absolutely voluntary. This service is led by one of the five college preachers. Twenty minutes before nine the old college bell-ringer sends out a warning chime, and then keeps up a gentle tolling of the bell, while the students gather in Appleton Chapel for morning prayers. As the first dozen enter the chapel and select seats, the organist begins a voluntary. By two and threes, others enter, to meditate in the almost empty church, where the morning light shines dimly in through tinted panes, as though striving to cheer the sombre walls. Dur- ing the last minute the students throng into the Chapel, until there is a congregation of several hundreds. At fifteen minutes of nine the organ is stilled, and the preacher enters the pulpit. As he rises before the congregation, they also rise AMERICAN EDUCATION 173 and preacher and students read a Psalm together. Hardly are all seated again, when the opening chords of the anthem peal forth from the organ, and the choir sings. After this song service comes the reading of the Bible, with comments by the preacher, and a prayer. It is the preacher's share in the exercises that is most unique and most attractive. Each of the college preachers leads the chapel services for about six weeks during the college year, usually making three visits to Cambridge of a fortnight each. These clergymen belong to different de- nominations, and they are selected on account of their catholicity of spirit and eminence as preachers. It is well to dwell on the great op- portunity for religious instruction which the presence of these men affords. No system of family worship can begin to be so attractive as this simple yet splendid service. IN'o one man's teaching can be compared to the rich variety of religious thinking which is offered by these great church leaders. When the prayer is ended, — sometimes in the full sentences of the Prayer-book, sometimes the utterances of a '^ heart's sincere desire," 174 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN often only the familiar Lord's Prayer, — the students rise and sing a hymn in closing. With a short benediction and a responsive amen from the choir, the service is ended. No notices of any kind, or announcements, are ever given at any service in the chapel. (2) A preaching service is held on Sunday evening in the college Chapel. Here one of the college preachers officiates. Each college preacher is expected to supply the pulpit four times a year. The Board of Preachers for the year also select a number of clergymen from other churches, who give about one-third of the sermons during the year. All these sermons are expected to deal with religion in its essential elements and universal aspects — practical ser- mons on the religious life. (3) The influence of the preacher upon the University does not stop every day at nine o'clock in the morning, nor is it limited to the Chapel pulpit. The University Calendar in- variably contains the following notice : — ^'The preacher conducting morning prayers may be found at Wadsworth House I. every day during his term of service." AMERICAN EDUCATION I75 Wadsworth House is the residence of the col- lege iDreachers while in Cambridge. It stands in the ^^ Quadrangle," in the heart of college life, where it has stood since 1726, when it was built for the president's home. Here the young men can meet the preachers personally, and converse with them confidentially on all perplexing ques- tions that University life raises in regard to religion, morality, and charity. This consult- ing-room is seldom crowded, but never neg- lected. (4) A popular service has been introduced during the winter term, for several years, as a vesper service on Thursday afternoons. The Chapel is thrown open to the public, and the students take this opportunity to invite their friends to the college. The ladies seem espe- cially pleased with the exercises, and Thursday afternoons assume the aspect of half-holidays. Vespers begins at five, and last some forty minutes : they are largely a service of song, but always have a short sermon. The music is furnished by the college choir, aided usually by some soloist from the neighboring cities. As the reader will have noticed, the following 176 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN principles are involved in the ^ ^ Harvard Plan ' ' : {a) absolute religious freedom by leaving attend- ance upon all these services perfectly voluntary ; (p) rotation in service of distinguished preachers, who are officers of the University, usually serv- ing for several years in succession, and who bring their wisest and broadest word on religion and life to these students ; (c) what Professor Peabody calls ''the heart of the movement," the residence of these preachers at the University during their terms of service, to maintain pastoral relations with the students, conferring with them respect- ing their religious problems. President Charles W. Eliot gives this emphatic testimony in favor of the good results that have followed the adoption of these methods : — ''Both these branches of the ministers' work [preaching and pastoral] have succeeded in a high degree. The services on Sunday evenings and Thursday afternoons are largely attended ; and morning prayers at a quarter before nine are attended in a satisfactory way, although by varying numbers and never by a large propor- tion of the total body of students in Cambridge. An attendance of two hundred at morning AMERICAN EDUCATION 177 prayers is considered good ; and in very bad weather, especially on Monday morning, the at- tendance occasionally descends to sixty or sev- enty persons. All the services now held in Ap- pleton Chapel are strictly devotional in method and in spirit. No one attends any of them ex- cept from the conviction that it is good for him to be there. It is perfectly understood among both faculty and students that no record is kept of attendance at the chapel, and that no gain of any sort can result from attendance except the satisfaction of a religious need. The congrega- tion is a shifting one . from morning to morning and from week to week, although, of course, some students and some officers go to chapel habitually. In ten years there ha^ been no sign of diminishing interest in the chapel exercises ; but, on the contrary, there has been manifested a growing interest. ^ ^ In seeking the reasons for the success of this purely optional method in a community of young men at a time of life which, on the whole, is not, in common estimation, religiously inclined, the first cause which comes to mind is the quality of the preachers themselves who in successive years 178 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN have had charge of the work. These ministers have been, and need to be, more than usually capable as preachers. They need to be simple, direct, and manly, but also full of religious enthusiasm and of intellectual resource. The variety of preachers is one of the advantages of the method. The preachers have come from various denominations and localities, and they have been men of varied professional training and experience." Henry Drummond, certainly a fair and com- petent witness, declared that the services in Appleton Chapel were the most religious, public or private, that he had ever seen. The influence of this ^^ Harvard Plan" has been wide and salutary. It may be traced in what has been done to modify and enrich the methods at Yale, Amherst, Dartmouth, Yassar, and other institu- tions, where distinguished ministers from a dis- tance, representing various denominations, are called into service. A few of the State Universi- ties, like the University of Indiana, have copied some of these methods. The University of Chi- cago has recently adopted a system that resembles in some particulars the methods in operation at AMERICAN EDUCATION 179 Harvard. It has a board of preachers, who, in turn, reside at the institution for a term of weeks, conducting chapel exercises and preach- ing on Sunday. But, unfortunately, attendance at chapel is compulsory for different departments on different days, the service is marred by the presence of some things not conducive to the religious spirit, and the pastoral relation is not made prominent. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDA- TIONS CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDA- TIONS I. Eespecting the Public Schools. There is a feeling abroad in the land that we do not have moral power sufficient for the great task of civilization which we face. Those clear- eyed observers among us who are not iDCSsimists realize the ethical insufficiency of our people. When we make up the balance-sheet of the past hundred years or take stock for the business of the coming century, it is necessary that we look carefully to our gains and losses in righteousness. And, optimists as we ought to be, there are some pretty black facts that stare us in the face. The horrible brutality of our frequent lynchings and burnings at the stake, which constantly increase all over our land ; the alarming number of mur- ders, — one annually to every thousand families in many States ; the almost incredible growth of divorces, — these facts make an awful record. Who can describe the evils of the saloon ? Not 183 184 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN less alarming is the spread of bribery in the realm of politics. The bribe-giver and the bribe-taker stand at many a ballot box, and they stand there with no shame and little cen- sure. They stalk brazenly through public as- semblies from village council chamber to legisla- tive hall. The marks of their infamy brand many a brow from alderman to high govern- mental official. An engineer recently remarked: ^^We shall have to rebuild all the bridges on our line of railroad the coming summer. The old ones would collapse under the weight of the new cars that are to be double the size of those which were formerly run on our line. ' ' Apt illustration of what has already happened to a marked de- gree in the social and political world. The vil- lage conscience has often gone to pieces under the metropolitan stress and strain ! A moral sense that was adequate for simpler conditions has collapsed under the heavier burdens of modern life. The complexity of our problem has outgrown the ethical evolution. Our fort- unes have increased faster than our moral re- sources. Temptations have outrun the growth AMERICAN EDUCATION 185 of moral sentiment. The life-traffic is too heavy for the life-bridges. To be as good an alderman as his predecessor a generation ago, my neighbor must have vastly more moral capital. He must be able to resist the bribes of contractors and promoters in quest for franchise, who were then almost unknown. But worse than this : Not only have burdens and temptations increased with very much greater rapidity than the growth of moral power, our spiritual resources have actually diminished. Not only are the new cars heavier, the bridges are weaker from the decay of prop and brace. Eeligious conviction has lost much of its author- ity and power to guide human life. The church no longer commands : it entertains and pleads. The home does not give that vigorous moral training which it once provided and ought still to provide. The press amuses and instructs, but it seldom arouses and leads. Literature too often takes us into the sewer rather than to the heights. The precious institution of Sunday no longer safeguards the common sanctities as for- merly. Let us not exaggerate. We must not for a moment think that all, or even a majority. 186 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN of the people are bad. In some directions there have been decided gains for morality. In many- lines of business, honor and honesty were prob- ably never before so high. But outside some de- partmentS; like the post-of&ce, there has been a plunge downward in the ideals and methods of the men in public life in America. Now, when people begin to realize these condi- tions, — and many have already become alarmed by these dangers that threaten us, — they look for the cause of these evils, in order that some rem- edy may be found and applied. They anxiously ask : What institution is at fault ? Where have we been negligent ? What have we left undone that ought to have been done ? The interest of self-preservation is fundamental and imperative. When the community fully realizes that its best interests are actually imperilled, public senti- ment will be aroused to the point of intense ac- tivity. Then the danger-point will be reached, — the probability of doing something rash and rev- olutionary, of applying drastic and harmful methods of treatment. Indications are multiplying which show that we are fast nearing this state of mind. People AMERICAN EDUCATION 187 have expected so much of the Public School that, very naturally, when they see that things are going wrong, that there is a deficiency of moral sentiment, they conclude that these evils and dangers are upon us because our system of edu- cation is radically at fault. Criticisms and even condemnations of the Public Schools abound. Eminent educators, with a reputation for sobri- ety, pass severe judgments upon our methods of popular education, calling especial attention to their failure to give proper training in morals. It needs no eye of prophecy to see that three convictions are taking shape in the public mind : (1) the deepening sense that our moral condi- tion is unsatisfactory and that our ethical equip- ment is inadequate ; (2) the wide-spread con- demnation of the Public Schools, holding them responsible for the moral delinquencies of so- ciety in general ; (3) the demand that some- thing be done, vigorous and radical, to avert these dangers and remedy these defects. In order to cure existing evils and avert im- pending dangers, some urge that didactic in- struction in ethics be given a prominent place in our methods of common school instruction. 188 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN Some ask that the Bible be more largely used in the Public School. Some suggest that the school-houses be turned over to all the sects for the religious instruction of children on evenings and Saturdays and during vacations. And some demand that the fundamental principles of Chris- tianity be introduced into our schools. These problems are upon us, not as matters of theory, but as practical questions that will soon press for careful consideration and skilful handling. To show the direction of public senti- ment along this line, it would not be difficult to mass together a large collection of opinions, like the following from Eev. Josiah Strong, D.D., president of the League for Social Service, a man who is in close touch with the modern world and who reflects a growing popular feel- ing : ' ' There is a profound need of a great ethi- cal revival in the church as well as outside of it, and a much better ethical training should be given both in the Sunday-school and the day school. I am of the number who believe that religion affords the only adequate basis for ethi- cal instruction. Between the upper and nether millstones of Eomanism and secularism, all re- A3IERICAN EDUCATION 189 ligion will be ground out of our Public Schools. I would like very much to see inculcated in them the fundamental truths common to all monothe- istic religions j namely, the existence of a God, man's immortality and his accountability. Jew, Catholic, and Protestant alike believe in these fundamental truths." There is much that may be commended in the opening sentences of this statement. The need of an ethical revival in the churches is evident. Many will agree with Dr. Strong that religion is the only adequate basis for moral training. But the closing sentences raise radically different problems. Even if piety is the only sure basis for morality, it does not follow that a scheme of theology, however brief, should be imposed upon our State schools. But this noteworthy statement from Dr. Strong, and many similar facts, show that some of the important matters which ten years ago seemed finally and happily settled have to be opened up again for fresh discussion from new points of view, and another settlement along different lines must be reached. The general principles which must guide us have been set forth with some ful- 190 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN ness in the opening chapters of this little treatise. All that needs be attempted here is to reiterate some of the fundamental statements already made, especially as they bear upon these new ^ phases of the problem, and to consider very briefly a few of the new questions that have been raised. A consideration to be kept prominently in mind and pressed to the front is this : It is well to realize our ethical insufGciency j but, while we do this, let us not condemn the Public School for what it is not responsible. To hold the common schools responsible for all our social immorality and political degradation is an un- reasonable, unjust, and harmful interpretation of existing conditions : unreasonable, because it ignores many influences for evil, such as immi- gration, commercialism, domestic disorder, and religious indifference, and locates the cause where it does not belong j unjust, because it condemns the agency which is doing the most to enrich and ennoble human life ; harmful, because it is a diagnosis which diverts attention from the real sources of our misfortunes, discouraging the valiant workers for righteousness, and sending A3IERIGAN EDUCATION 191 US in the wrong direction for relief. Let us not strike down the best friends of morality and religion in the land. And, above all, let us not disown the essential principles of our modern civilization, and injure both the cause of religion and the cause of education by applying in our haste a remedy that is worse than the evils that really exist. A. To those who plead that an elaborate system of didactic moral instruction be added to the curriculum of the Public Schools in order to in- crease the ethical resources of our people, let it be said : — (1) The courses of study in these schools are at present everywhere excessively elaborate and burdensome, and what is urgently needed is simplification in education rather than addi- tional studies. (2) The didactic instruction in morals which is so frequently demanded will be wholly incapa- ble of developing the ethical life sought. What is now really being done, as well as what cannot be done, in the line of moral training in our Public Schools, are vital questions which have already been discussed in preceding pages. K 192 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN history and psychology teach anything with com- manding impressiveness, it is that spiritual power cannot be evolved by the scholastic mechanism proposed. B. To those who insist that school-houses be turned over to the sects for the religious instruc- tion of children when the Public School is not in session, let it be said : The use of these build- ings, which are the property of the secular State, for such purposes, would be illegal. It would be so far a union of church and State, — the use of public property for religious purposes, — what is prohibited by the genius of our civilization, and also by the constitutions and statutes of a majority of our States. It is obviously unneces- sary that any innovation like this be attempted, for there is hardly anywhere a village but that has adequate accommodations for such work in the many church buildings of the town. It would surely be unwise and inexpedient to in- augurate such a policy, for it would give rise at once to sectarian jealousies and denominational rivalries. 0. To those who ask, like Dr. Strong, that the fundamentals of religion be taught in the Public Schools, let it be said : — AMERICAN EDUCATION I93 (1) The same objection liolds against this as against didactic moral instruction, — the school is already overcrowded with topics and text- books. (2) This plan is in plain opposition to the im- plied and express character of the Public School as a State institution. What is ruled out, by the provision of the constitution and by the genius of our civilization, is not the non-essentials of religion, but religious matters of all kinds ; and this is done for the good of religion itself. As soon as you start on this un-American road, the question arises : What is essential, and what non-essential? Who shall decide, the pope or the Jewish rabbi ? (3) The wise friend of religion ought to see that the school-room is not the most appropriate place for the cultivation of religious feelings : it cannot have the spirit, the atmosphere, the as- sociations that make religious culture effective. To attempt such a combination means simply waste of time and vexatious difficulties, without reaching the spiritual development of life de- sired. Probably, under the skilful teacher, the religious nature of the child in the Public School 194 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN is often quickened ; but this comes as an indirect result. It would seldom occur if the teacher were directly seeking to make a religious im- pression. In this connection it may be well to refer to an argument which is being put forth in some quarters in behalf of the movement to introduce religious instruction into our Public Schools : ^^It is a serious phase of the present situation that the religious and moral instruction of the young is isolated from their instruction in other departments of knowledge. The correlation of the different elements of education is incomplete, because the religious and moral instruction is received in entire separation from the general instruction of the Public Schools. The facts and truths of religion are the foundation and the imperative of morality. Present civilization rests upon the religious and ethical ideals of the past, and the civilization of the future depends upon a due recognition of religion and morality as essential factors in the growing welfare of hu- manity. The knowledge and experience of re- ligious and moral truth must underlie and pene- trate all knowledge and experience. The events AMERICAN EDUCATION 195 and ideas of the past, as of tlie present, must be viewed in the light of a divine hand as the cre- ator of the universe, a divine power sustaining it, a divine wisdom guiding it, and a divine purpose being accomplished in it. The physical world about us, our fellow-men, and our own selves must all be interpreted by religion truly conceived and morality properly understood. It is therefore impossible to accomplish the ideal education of the individual when the religious and moral element is isolated from the other ele- ments j still worse when it is not received at all by the majority of the children. All the ele- ments of education must be woven together into an organic unity to produce a perfect result. ' ' It is certainly discouraging to have such ideas as these set forth with the approval of the pres- ident of one of our great Universities, who is a prominent advocate of more modern methods in Sunday-school work. The argument, however plausible in appearance, does not touch the point at issue. The importance of religion, the religious significance of all truth, the necessity for harmonious development, — these proposi- tions are all true. But they are not involved in this discussion. 196 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN Secular instructiou and religious instruction are not necessarily separated because one is given in a Public School on week-days and the other in a church on Sunday. The harmful sep- aration between life and religion, which does widely exist to-day, does not arise from the fact that religion is excluded from the secular school j but it arises rather from the fact that the in- struction of the church in spirit, method, and material, is commonly on a traditional and anti- quated plan. To teach religion in church on Sunday, and science in the Public School on Monday without any theological association, no more separates these two spheres of life, no more injures either kind of instruction, than the teach- ing of the classics by one teacher on Tuesday in our school-room injures the scientific instruction given by another teacher on Wednesday in the laboratory ! The absurdity of the argument quoted above is easily seen, if we turn the proposition squarely about. It is contended, in substance, that relig- ion ought to be taught along with arithmetic, in order to get the best results in religion. If so, then the preacher, to make the deepest spiritual AMERICAN EDUCATION 197 impression, ought to share his morning hour in the pulpit on Sunday with a lecturer on vol- canoes or on protoplasm ! Now what is really necessary is simply that both the teacher of science and the teacher of the classics live in the same modern world ! So in these other realms : the only necessity is that preacher and Sunday- school teacher live in the world of modern knowl- edge. The argument in the foregoing quotation, though presented by a Protestant, exactly de- scribes the position long held by the Catholic church ; namely, that, in order to make educa- tion effective, both common knowledge and re- ligious dogma must be taught to young people by the same teacher in the same school. The Catholic holds that scientific instruction given apart from theological doctrine is ungodly : not only fruitless, but injurious. He holds also that to develop the moral sense successfully the creed must go hand in hand with general information. The complete refutation of this argument, whether put forth by Catholic or Protestant, is found in the appeal to experience. Where have the great scientists of America been educated? 198 RELIGIOUS FREED 031 IN A great majority in the Public Schools, not in the parochial schools. Where have our great reformers, as a rule, been trained, our men and women of keenest conscience, like Parker and Garrison, Mary A. Livermore and Frances E. Willard, Horace Greeley and Charles Sumner? In parish schools ? No, in the common schools ! D. To those who demand that, in order to re- move the lamentable popular ignorance of the Bible, — which indeed widely prevails, especially at the i)resent time, among the young, — the Scriptures be more extensively used in the Public Schools, let it be said : (1) The popular ignorance of the Bible is un- fortunate, and efficient means ought at once to be taken to cultivate a thorough acquaintance with these writings and to train people in a rational use of them. But this ignorance of the Bible, this indifference to Scripture, is in no sense due to the fact that it has been dropped from the Public Schools. It exists in localities where the Bible is daily read in the schools just the same as in regions where it is not used. Among the masses in England and Germany where the schools force a good deal of Bible in- AMERICAN EDUCATION 199 struction upon children, the people are turning away from religion and the Scriptures even more than with us, showing that the absence of a little Bible- reading from the work of our Pub- lic School is not the cause of the indifference and ignorance under discussion. The condition is international, and the cause lies deep down in our civilization. The fact is that the use of the Bible for dogma is widely discredited, because interest in dogma has died. The study of the Bible for theology has stopped because the theological spirit has vanished. And these are unfortunately about the only uses of the Bible with which iieople are familiar. The views of life with which the Bible was erroneously long associated have largely been abandoned. The real character and true message of the Bible are not generally understood. What therefore stands in the way of the Bible is not its disuse in the schools, but an irrational view of it and a dogmatic use of it. The way to kindle an interest in the Bible is not to put it back into the schools, but to place it on its own merits in the world of religious life. Let the churches put the real Bible, illuminated 200 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN by modern discovery, into the hands of the peo- ple. This will bring a new day of power for the Bible and a rebirth of Christianity itself. (2) In order to carry out this suggestion, to accomplish what must be done if the object sought is realized, a great deal more must be undertaken than what the Public Schools can or could do, even if their secular character did not make the work inappropriate. There is not time enough in the Public Schools to give thor- ough instruction in the Bible. The old perfunc- tory reading of a short passage is not sufficient. Anything like a prolonged study is out of the question. But why go to the Public Schools at all with this question ? It is a problem that belongs to the churches. If the people are becoming igno- rant of the Bible, our ministers are to blame for it. Let us not hold the overworked common school teacher responsible for this ignorance, while we allow the churches to go free of cen- sure. What are the hundred thousand churches in our IN'ation for, if not just for this one thing,— to teach the Bible ? If the Bible has fallen out of American life, the churches are to blame for AMERICAN EDUCATION 201 it. Let us hold the guilty party responsible. Nothing is more unreasonable than for eccle- siastics to blame the State schools for this popu- lar ignorance respecting the Bible, which, in fact, is an ignorance that reveals their own in- sufficiency. It is the church that must do this work. Let the church train competent Bible teachers and pay for Sunday-school instruction. Here, and here alone, is the remedy. President Wheeler of the University of California has recently made a wise remark, that the churches must spend more money on their Sunday-school and less on their choir ! (3) There is at present a demand made by such eminent educators as President Butler of Columbia University, that the Bible be given a high place in the Public Schools as literature j and it is claimed by him and others that, if we provide more extensively for its study in the common schools as literature, the evils of the present situation will be removed. Those who advance this argument are right in one particu- lar : what we most need is a more rational use of the Bible as a precious religious literature. But they are wrong in every other particular ! 202 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN The cliurches, not tlie Public Schools, are the institutions to do this work, as has just been stated. Let us hold them responsible for it. They are supported to give religious instruction. This is their specific office. It is their business to make the people familiar with the greatest religious literature in the world. But more than this. We could not in the way- suggested escape the sectarian entanglement. We cannot by this policy satisfy the various churches which are not ready to have the Bible treated merely as literature ! If the Public School should assume to use the Bible simply and solely as a literature, which is the demand that is made, this would involve the State in sectarian wrangles at once. To take this posi- tion is to pass judgment on the Bible, it is an indirect assumption that the Bible is only litera- ture. The State has no right to do this. It will get into trouble with the churches if it attempts to do it. Some church would very soon say: ^'The Bible is an infallible revelation, and the State school has no right to use it simply as a literature ! We protest against having our children use the Bible just as they use Cicero's Orations ! '' AMERICAN EDUCATION 203 The friends of religious freedom in education in America ought to keep in mind themselves, and make clear to others, these fundamental truths : — I. The Public Schools must be judged by what they accomplish in the particular line of their special work. They are created and supported by the State to provide a certain type and amount of education, — the education most needed for good citizenship, — which the Secular State is in duty bound to give. It is not intended that they develop all sides of human nature or equip the individual for every task in life. There are other agencies and institutions to prepare people for these tasks, — the home, the church, the li- brary. If the common schools fail in their specific work, let them be criticised, in order that they may be improved. But let us not be so unjust as to condemn them for public defi- ciencies which lie quite apart from their sphere and for which they are not responsible. And let us not be so unwise as to injure them and the cause of true piety by imposing upon them the important but delicate duties of religious instruc- tion, which they are not organized to give and 204 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN which are amply provided for by other institu- tions if they do their duty. II. If the churches will do their work as effi- ciently as the teachers of the Public Schools are doing theirs, the present popular ignorance of the Bible will soon disappear and the increase of moral power among our people will be en- couragingly rapid. Ko wonder that the young people are ignorant of Scripture and indifferent to it. How could it be otherwise with such methods as are generally used in the Sunday- schools and with such teachers as are provided, as a rule, for Sunday-school classes ! What is done in the ordinary Sunday-school is not worthy of the name instruction. It is mere inane dawdling ! How can you expect high school boys and girls to take any interest in the Bible when their Sunday-school teacher con- tradicts what they have learned about history and nature ? When he sees nothing in the Bible page but a scheme of theology discredited by the common knowledge of the time ! When he takes them into a dead world of irrational tradi- tions ! No wonder that the Bible goes unread when so unskilfully presented. AMERICAN EDUCATION 205 We insist that the person who teaches our children grammar and chemistry shall be mature, thoroughly educated, and especially trained for her work. But we pick up any sentimental girl or superannuated goody, and make her a Sunday- school teacher. We commit to her our children to be trained in ethics and religion, to be in- structed in the character and message of the Bible, — a far more important and delicate ser- vice than teaching grammar and chemistry. Nothing more unwise could i)ossibly be done. If careful preparation and special aptitude are needed in the Public school teacher, far more do we need Sunday-school teachers who are chosen with great care and specially trained for their work. But where is the church that has them ? that is willing to pay for them ? It is largely because the Sunday-school work is so poorly done that the Bible is becoming a dead book. And for this, strange to say, the Public Schools are savagely condemned. As people neglect the Bible chiefly because the Sunday-school teacher is incompetent and the church faib in its own mission of Bible instruc- tion, a hue and cry is raised, and the demand is. 206 RELIGIOUS FREE DO 31 IN made tliat the overtaxed Public School teacher be compelled to do this work ! Nothing more unjust or unwise could be imagined. "We must insist that the churches provide trained teachers to do the work that belongs to them. -And, when we have Sunday-school teachers even half as competent in their line of religious instruction as the Public School teachers are in secular in- struction, then the Bible will again be widely known and religion will have new power. II. Eespecting Colleges and Uniyeesities. During the last twenty-five years there has been in our American institutions of higher learning a notable and decided movement toward religious freedom, substituting voluntary for compulsory attendance on chapel and church. The institutions to participate the least in this movement have been State Normal Schools and Agricultural Colleges. Those that have been foremost in carrying out the ideal of neutrality in religion have been the State Universities and a few great institutions, like Harvard, Cornell, and Leland Stanford, Jr. Some institutions with close denominational afBiliations, like Yale, AMERICAN EDUCATION 207 Smith, and Columbia have made notable prog- ress in the same direction. In only a few cases, like the University of Wisconsin, has the chapel service been aban- doned. In many cases, even where the religious spirit is intense, the voluntary policy has been substituted for the compulsory. In many other cases, where attendance is still required, the character of the exercises has radically changed, and, on the whole, improved in breadth and variety. The meeting now held is more a social and educational assemblage than a formal relig- ious exercise. The recent change at Earlham College (Ortho- dox Quaker), Eichmond, Ind., illustrates this tendency. Attendance is still compulsory ; but, instead of the somewhat staid and perfunctory service formerly held, the exercises are now varied and free, — readings outside of Scripture, addresses on current topics, and a large use of music. Almost everywhere the chapel exercises have been stripped of dogma and intolerance, while they have been humanized and vitalized. The chapel has come to be prized and enjoyed for its advantages as a common meeting, where 208 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN faculty and students come together and feel the enthusiasm of a corporate life, where the gen- eral interests of the institution are presented, and where the social instincts as well as the religious feelings are fostered. All this is forcibly indicated in what has occurred at Lehigh University : chapel was originally compulsory ; then it was made volun- tary 5 but after two years it was again made compulsory at the request of the whole student body (445), not so much as a matter of religious interest, but because they wanted to see the whole college together once a day in the interest of ^ '■ college spirit. ' ' The following statement by a University presi- dent seems eminently wise : ^ ^ I believe in the benefit to students in coming together freely daily for a short period. They thus keep in touch with what is going on and with one another. The chapel period can be made very profitable for students. If one avoids all sancti- monious pretence, presents interestingly some ethical and religious topic, and puts life, energy, and scholarship into chapel exercises, attend- ance will follow, and the problem is solved for ninety-nine out of one hundred students.'^ AMERICAN ED UCA TION 209 What has occurred at Earlham and Lehigh illustrates the spirit and method of the changes which are everywhere being made in the realm of higher education. The general gain may be briefly described in this statement : The relig- ious rights of the student are far more widely respected than ever before ; theological opinions opposed to his own conviction are not thrust upon him ; his own religious views, if uncom- mon and peculiar, do not subject him so much as formerly to annoyance ; religion appeals to him in a more rational and winsome manner ; and he is made to feel that piety is a personal matter for which he as an individual is alone responsible. The changes indicated have been advantage- ous, on the whole, to the cause of religion and also to the cause of education. These changes do not mean an indifference to religion, but a larger conception of what religion really is, a clearer understanding of the true methods of re- ligious nurture, and a stronger faith in the inher- ent religiousness of human nature. What seems at first glance like an unfortunate secularization of education has been followed, in many in- 210 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN stances, by a deeper religious life among the students. This is true even in such institutions as the great State Universities of Wisconsin and California where no chapel exists. What the formal and official service failed to do has been done by the students themselves, acting freely and spontaneously through the local churches or in connection with some form of Christian Associa- tion. An illustration of this fact is found in the situation at Ann Arbor, the seat of the Univer- sity of Michigan j and the same is true in other college towns. During the year fully fifty ser- mons and addresses on distinctly religious topics are given by a score or more distinguished clergy- men and laymen of the country. These men are secured by the students, acting through local churches or organizations of their own. All these discourses are free to the public j and the attendance of the students is seldom less than 100, and it often rises to 1,000. Some are given on Sundays, and some are given on week-days. It may confidently be asserted that there is pro- portionately much less hatred of the church among students to-day than half a century ago. AMERICAN EDUCATION 211 A larger proportion of students are now engaged in some form of religious interest or activity than at any time in the last half- century. In taking account of the religious condition of our colleges and Universities, the Young Men's Christian Association and similar organizations must not be overlooked. The Association is increasing in numbers and multiplying its ac- tivities at all our seats of learning. It has effectively organized the students of conserva- tive beliefs. It fosters their religious life, and sets them at work in many helpful ministries. To it chiefly is due the fact, just stated, that to-day a larger proportion of students than ever before are aggressively active in the religious life. The work may be less modern and effec- tive than it might be, but it is positive and earnest. These results show that, as our educa- tional institutions have ceased to coerce students in these matters, the young people themselves have taken religious interests into their own hands ; and they have not only made religion a more personal affair, but they have given it more practical and varied expression. There are many deeply religious people who 212 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN wish that the basis of the Association were broader and its spirit less dogmatic, yet we may all rejoice in the large work that it is doing ; and we would earnestly insist that students of a more modern religious ideal ought to be equally active in larger methods of religious culture. While the Association does not repre- sent a religious spirit sufficiently progressive and inclusive, yet it is encouraging to note that it does mark a wide and hopeful departure from petty controversies and arid dogmas. It is, to a large extent, interdenominational, and so far helpful to theological neutrality in education ; but it stops short of freedom of truth and uni- versality of fellowship. But let no one imagine that the best has yet been done in a sufficiently large way to secure theological neutrality on the one hand, and on the other to provide the motive and method for positive religious culture. In many cases the present methods represent an arrested develop- ment. More has been done to secure for students liberty of religious belief than to give efficient nuiture to their spiritual nature. The cultiva- tion of the heart has not kept pace with the AMERICAN EDUCATION 213 decay of doctrinal compulsion. Text and dogma are not now forced upon the young as they once were : here is the improvement. An effective training in vital piety has not been generally reached : here is the limitation. We are in a stage of transition. We have put aside some old errors, but we have not widely adopted new and better methods. The present problem is not, How to emanci- pate from bonds'? but, rather, How to secure the free cultivation and improvement of the re- ligious life of students ? The conviction deepens that compulsory attendance on a formal relig- ious service is not a wise policy. The important fact is not what we have compelled the student to attend, but what we have helped him to at- tain. On the other hand, simply making a life- less exercise voluntary is not sufficient. We cannot in this way provide a commanding in- ducement to piety or a vitalizing religious at- mosphere. Merely ceasing to drive is not be- ginning to win young hearts to reverence and righteousness. The social and educational assembly or convo- ( cation, with discussion of current topics, which 214 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN has grown up in many institutions, and which expresses the present tendency, represents a gain for religious freedom and for life in general. But, though called a '^chapel exercise" and fringed with prayer and Bible-reading, it pro- vides no adequate religious training or inspira- tion. As a meeting for school notices and good fellowship, it may be fruitful ; but it is not in that secular atmosphere nor by those superficial methods that the religious nature of the young can be successfully cultivated. Eeligion is too great and too precious a factor in human life to be ignored by the educator or left entirely to the whim or caprice of the college student. On the other hand, an equal danger lies in a compulsory, lifeless, or repel- lent administration of sacred things. Nowhere is greater skill or more careful preparation needed than in the conduct of a religious service attended by susceptible young men and women. Whether a bane or a blessing will depend upon the spirit of the man behind the pulpit. The supreme end to be reached is positiveness of religious impression without intolerance or dogmatism. AMERICAN EDUCATION 215 Just how to interest students in religion, especially in State institutions, while respecting their freedom and imposing no creed, is a prob- lem as yet incompletely solved. However much neighboring churches may do, and however valu- able the services of voluntary associations among the students themselves, the institution itself ought to provide opportunity and incentive. Nothing better can be recommended to overcome existing defects and secure the desired ends than some plan similar to that in successful operation at Harvard, — utmost liberty in attendance, the ministers of various denominations, who have the genius to make religion interesting and impres- sive, acting in rotation during the year as preachers and pastors, and their residence during service in close contact with the students for free and friendly counsel. Under such conditions the authority and influence of the institution itself are brought to bear, without compulsion or dogmatism, in favor of high spiritual ideals. The form of piety thus cultivated will surely be rational, genuine, and broad. A special building, beautiful and impressive, with the enriching associations of sanctity ; 216 RELIGIOUS FREEDOM music and prayers that are the expression of the purest and most catholic feelings of worship j the affirmation of universal religious truths with simplicity and power; the presence of those brought by earnest cravings for the divine life, — these are the elements of a chapel or church service that will offend none and bless all. JUN 17 1903 ^ ."^^ O. C^ .*" -^"-^ V _ X * > \> ^ ^' " « A ■^ > <^. o > •^j ''^^ V^^ X^^x. .0^ *. -^^ .-^^ # V %y^v O, ' » . » - A" o N c Vv 1 « ,. '^'/ -^^ V^ v^^^ 0^;/ Vj -0^ ? o ,0o \^ •?^ ^ * X •• \V ^^ I) ■■> \ xO -^i.. ^A v^ ; vOO ^oo^ ;i * ^l. * s ^ , V^ V o 0^ , '-^ * .0 N O ^ ^^"^ I _ '^ z - -/ f jO, ^ ^ V o'>^^-v^^ 'V^'^^^^cP """^v^^ii^:^ / ^ ^^ %./' " .^^% ■«»U)>'V- ■** LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 029 445 890 6